UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
PUBLICATIONS  IN  HISTORY 


VOLUME  I 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  PRESS 

BERKELEY 

1914 


s/.l 


5534 
Bancroft  Library 


STUDIES  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 


lancroft  Library 


CONTENTS 

PAGES 

No.  1.     COLONIAL  OPPOSITION  TO  IMPERIAL  AUTHORITY  DURING  THE 

FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WAR,  BY  EUGENE  IRVING  McCoRMAC  1-  98 

I.  General  View  1-  17 

II.  New  England  17-  26 

Massachusetts   17-  20 

Connecticut    20-  22 

Ehode  Island  22-  24 

New  Hampshire 24-  26 

III.  The  Middle  Colonies 26-  74 

New  York  26-  31 

New  Jersey  31-  34 

Pennsylvania  34-  63 

Maryland    63-  74 

IV.  The  Southern  Colonies  74-  92 

Virginia    74-  85 

North  Carolina  85-  88 

South  Carolina  88-  89 

Georgia  89-  92 

Conclusion  92-  98 

Bibliography  97-  98 

No.  2.     THE  VICEROY  OP  NEW  SPAIN,  BY  DONALD  E.  SMITH  98-293 

I.  Historical  Introduction  98-122 

II.  The  Relations  of  the  Viceroy  with  the  Home  Gov- 
ernment      123-158 

III.  The  Viceroy  as  Governor  159-192 

IV.  The  Viceroy  as  Captain-General  193-228 

V.  The  Viceroy  as  Vice-Patron  229-247 

VI.  The  Eeforms  of  Galvez  248-275 

VII.  Conclusion  276-284 

Bibliographical  Note  284-287 

Bibliography    288-293 


PAGES 

No.  3.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  SPANISH  SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  EL  PASO 

DISTRICT,  BY  ANNE  E.  HUGHES  295-392 

I.  Introductory:  Spanish  Expansion  into  New  Mexico 

and  Nueva  Vizcaya  295-302 

Bibliographical  Note  301-302 

II.  Early  Missions  and  Settlers  in  the  El  Paso  District, 

1659-1680  303-314 

III.  The  Coming  of  the  Eefugees  from  Santa  Fe,  1680 315-323 

IV.  The  Founding  of  the  Presidio  and  the  Reorganization 

of  the  Settlements,  1683  324-333 

V.  The  Eevolt  of  the  Mansos  and  their  Neighbors 334-364 

VI.  The  Consolidation  of  the  Settlements  in  1684  365-370 

VII.  Efforts  to  Abandon  El  Paso,  1684-1685  371-381 

VIII.  The  Quarrel  with  Nueva  Vizcaya  over  Jurisdiction.  382-387 
IX.  Conclusion:  Summary  of  Settlement  in  the  El  Paso 

District,   1659-1685   388-392 

INDEX  TO  THE  VOLUME  ...  ..  393-406 


THE  VICEROY  OF  NEW  SPAIN 

DONALD  E.  SMITH 


CHAPTEE  I 

HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION 

Although  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  show  why  the  history 
and  institutions  of  Spanish  America  should  be  studied  with  the 
same  interest  and  care  as  are  bestowed  upon  those  of  English  North 
America  or  of  Europe,  nevertheless  a  change  in  the  emphasis  of 
the  particular  phases  of  Spanish  American  history  to  be  inves- 
tigated must  be  insisted  upon.  It  is  today  recognized  practically 
everywhere  that  the  history  of  the  Americas  south  of  the 
United  States  has  a  dignity  of  its  own,  and  we  are  now  in  a  period 
in  which  there  is  evidence  of  an  increasing  attention  to  historical 
studies  relating  to  Spanish  America.  This  revival  of  interest  in 
the  working  of  what  is,  in  some  respects,  an  old  field  of  history 
should,  however,  be  turned  in  a  direction  which  will  enable  us 
to  realize  the  best  results  with  the  rich  materials  now  available.1 
We  must  no  longer  suffer  a  preoccupation  with  the  romantic 


i  The  unusual  facilities,  compared  with  the  past,  which  are  now  enjoyed 
by  the  investigators  in  the  field  of  Spanish  and  Spanish  American  history 
are  due  principally  to  three  facts.  The  first  is  the  more  liberal  policy 
adopted  in  recent  years  by  the  officials  of  the  Spanish  archives  in  throw- 
ing open  to  foreign  students  and  allowing  them  to  work  without  subject- 
ing the  materials  they  take  out  to  a  censorship.  These  favorable  con- 
ditions exist  now  in  the  great  repositories  of  documents  at  Simancas, 
Madrid,  and  Seville.  The  second  is  the  systematic  study  which  is  now 
being  made  of  the  archives  of  Mexico  under  the  auspices  of  the  Carnegie 
Institution  of  Washington.  The  third  is  the  conversion  of  the  great  library 
of  Mr.  H.  H.  Bancroft  from  a  private  collection  into  a  public  one,  ac- 
cessible to  all  qualified  students.  It  perhaps  ought  to  be  said  that  an 
additional  aid  is  being  offered  to  scholars  by  the  action  of  the  Mexican 
government  in  publishing  so  many  documents  of  the  highest  value  dealing 
with  the  history  of  the  country.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  series  of 
Documentos  Ineditos  para  la  Historia  de  Espana  reaches  only  to  the  seven- 
teenth century. 


100          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

age  of  the  early  conquerers  and  explorers,  after  the  fashion  of 
Irving  and  Prescott,  or  a  concentration  of  interest  on  the  wrongs 
of  the  native  races,  as  with  Las  Casas  and  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  or 
even  an  exclusively  economic  point  of  view,  such  as  was  so  bril- 
liantly held  by  Alexander  von  Humboldt.  That  which  is  of 
present  urgency  is  a  clear  understanding  of  the  general  adminis- 
trative system  of  the  Spaniard  in  his  dominions  overseas.  At  the 
very  outset,  any  such  endeavor  to  understand  what  the  Spanish 
colonial  government  really  was,  is  confronted  by  the  necessity  of 
finding  out  and  stating  unambiguously  the  duties  of  the  viceroy, 
how  they  were  performed,  and  what  were  their  historical  con- 
sequences. One  could  scarcely  devise  a  more  instructive  study 
in  comparative  institutions  than  that  presented  by  the  somewhat 
parallel  development  of  the  English  rule  in  India  and  the  Spanish 
rule  in  America,  the  whole  centering  in  the  office  of  the  viceroy ; 
but  our  interests  are  for  the  present  restricted  to  the  narrower 
view  of  the  viceroy  as  a  colonial  officer  in  New  Spain,  and  only 
an  occasional  comparison  between  him  and  similar  officials  of 
other  European  colonizing  nations  can  be  made. 

The  reasons  for  restricting  this  thesis  to  a  consideration  of 
the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  in  the  eighteenth  century  are  fourfold. 
In  the  first  place,  the  viceregal  office  attained  to  its  fullest  devel- 
opment in  Mexico,  or  New  Spain,  rather  than  in  Peru,  under  the 
special  guidance  of  the  greatest  of  Spain's  experts  in  colonial 
affairs,  Jose  de  Galvez,  Minister  General  of  the  Indies  (Ministro 
Universal  de  Indias).  In  the  second  place,  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, notably  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  it,  New  Spain  shared 
in  those  far-reaching  reforms  of  the  enlightened  despot,  Charles 
III,2  which  makes  its  history  during  that  reforming  epoch  pecu- 
liarly important.  The  transformation  which  the  Spanish  colonial 
system  underwent  at  this  time  can  be  studied  to  best  advantage, 
as  far  as  America  is  concerned,  in  the  history  of  the  viceroyalty  of 


2  In  many  ways  the  clearest  statement,  in  a  small  compass,  of  the  scope 
and  meaning  of  the  reforms  of  Charles  III  in  Spain  is  to  be  found  in  the 
little  Stanhope  essay,  by  Joseph  Addison.  The  larger  Spanish  general 
histories  of  this  reign,  such  as  the  one  by  Danvila  y  Collado,  and  the 
older  work  of  Ferrer  del  Rio,  are  very  weak  on  matters  relating  to 
America  and  to  the  colonies. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  101 

Mexico.  In  the  third  place,  this  period,  the  last  third  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  not  only  a  reforming  epoch,  when  Spain 
was  again  one  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  but  it  was  also  the 
time  in  Spanish  American  history  which  may  be  called  the  eve 
of  the  war  of  independence.  It  is  therefore  the  period  when 
there  can  be  studied  to  the  best  advantage  those  political  and 
social  forces  which  eventually  lost  for  Spain  the  most  splendid 
colonial  empire  known  at  that  time,  as  a  consequence  of  which 
this  era  is  attractive  to  the  historical  student  as  a  period  of 
preparation  for  the  subsequent  secession  of  Spanish  America. 
In  the  fourth  place,  as  a  final  reason  and  one  sufficient  in  itself, 
the  historical  materials  available  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  collection  belonging  to  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia, are  of  more  value  for  the  great  viceroyalty,  of  which  the 
Pacific  Coast  was  a  part,  than  for  the  more  distant  ones  of  South 
America.  From  the  point  of  view  of  time,  also,  the  documents 
in  the  Bancroft  Library  are  much  more  significant  for  the 
eighteenth  century  than  for  any  other  period. 

The  first  question  which  presents  itself  in  regard  to  the  vice- 
roy of  New  Spain,  let  us  say  in  the  year  1770,  before  the  new 
reforms  had  been  inaugurated,  is,  What  was  his  position  in  the 
general  scheme  of  the  government  of  the  viceroyalty,  and  what 
were  his  duties  with  reference,  on  the  one  hand,  to  his  superiors 
in  Spain,  and  on  the  other,  to  his  subordinates  in  the  dominions 
over  which  he  was  expected  to  rule  ?3  Any  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion must  begin  with  the  statement  that  the  viceroy  was  supposed, 
as  the  derivation  of  his  title  indicates,  to  be  in  the  place  of  the 
king,  to  be  the  king's  alter  ego,  to  have  all  the  powers  and  pre- 
rogatives which  the  king  would  have  were  he  there  in  person,  but 
subject,  of  course,  to  those  checks  and  restrictions  on  his  abso- 
lute power  which  the  king  had  seen  fit  to  throw  about  him.  As 
was  to  be  expected,  these  limitations  on  the  exercise  by  the  vice- 


s  The  best  existing  account  of  Spanish  institutions  as  they  were  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  given  by  Desdevises  du  Dezert, 
referred  to  in  the  appended  bibliographical  note.  What  is  said  there 
about  the  viceroy  in  Spain,  and  incidentally  in  the  colonies,  is  by  no 
means  exhaustive,  but  makes  a  clear  and  accurate  introduction  to  the  sub- 
ject. Such  a  book  as  the  Historia  de  Legislation  Espanola,  by  Antequera, 
is  satisfactory  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  too  brief. 


102          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

roy  of  plenary  royal  authority  were  very  considerable  and  varied 
at  different  times,  but  there  was  left,  even  at  this  time  of  the 
greatest  abasement  of  the  viceregal  government,  a  residuum  of 
powers  which  made  their  possessor  a  real  potentate.  The  viceroy 
of  New  Spain  was  the  highest  colonial  official  in  all  the  territory 
from  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  on  the  south,  northward  to  and  in- 
cluding New  Mexico,  Texas  and  California,  and  embracing 
those  lands  between  Louisiana  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  which  now 
constitute  the  southwestern  portion  of  the  United  States.  The 
Spanish  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  the  two  Floridas,  and  from 
1762  to  1800  Louisiana,  together  with  the  region  which  we  call 
Central  America,  organized  by  the  Spaniards  as  the  Cap- 
taincy-General of  Guatemala,  were  all  within  the  sphere  of  in- 
fluence of  the  viceroy  without  being  directly  subordinate  to 
him.4  In  times  of  war  these  neighboring  provinces  looked  to 
Mexico  for  military  and  financial  aid,  but  in  ordinary  matters 
of  internal  and  peaceful  administration  they  were  practically 
independent. 

The  viceroyalty  of  New  Spain  proper,  therefore,  may  be  said 
to  have  extended  from  Guatemala  to  Louisiana  and  Oregon.  Over 
this  vast  but  not  very  accurately  defined  territory  the  viceroy 
exercised  a  threefold  authority.  Just  what  this  authority  was 
and  just  how  it  was  exercised,  the  secondary  historians  have  never 
made  clear,  but  a  careful  reading  of  our  primary  sources  makes 
it  possible  so  to  state  it  that  it  is  intelligible  to  even  our 
American  modes  of  thought.  There  is  almost  never  discernible 
in  the  duties  of  a  Spanish  high  official  in  the  colonies  that  dis- 
tinction between  civil  and  military,  or  between  executive  and 
judicial  functions  which  are  so  fundamental  with  us.  This  gen- 
eral statement  is  made  at  the  beginning  in  order  to  anticipate 
those  confusions  and  contradictions  which  are  inevitably  en- 
countered by  the  student  who  is  accustomed  only  to  English  in- 


4  The  discussion  of  the  very  complicated  question  of  the  official  relation 
of  the  viceroy  to  the  neighboring  captains-general  is  taken  up  very 
briefly  in  a  later  chapter,  as  is  also  the  equally  perplexing  question  of 
territorial  divisions.  The  complicated  arrangement  regarding  the  Prov- 
incias  Internas  and  the  relation  of  this  new  territorial  circumscription 
the  rest  of  the  viceroyalty,  together  with  the  whole  matter  of  the  tweb 
new  intendancies,  will  be  taken  up  with  the  other  reforms  of  Galvez. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  103 

stitutions.  Taking  the  viceroy's  great  variety  of  functions  and 
separating  out  and  classifying  together  those  that  would  seem 
to  lend  themselves  to  any  sort  of  classification  under  familiar 
terms,  a  result  something  like  the  following  is  reached: 

1.  The  great  variety  of  duties  which  are  by  us  commonly 
termed  civil  were  exercised  by  the  viceroy  in  his  capacity  of 
gobernador,  or  governor.  But,  as  the  reader  has  just  been  warned, 
no  very  fine  distinctions  between  the  civil,  the  military,  and  the 
ecclesiastical  were  observed  by  the  legislators  for  New  Spain, 
and  an  endless  variety  of  duties  which  an  American  would  call 
civil  were  performed  by  the  viceroys  in  other  capacities  than  as 
governors.  However,  as  chief  in  a  general  way  of  the  civil  admin- 
istration, it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  surprise  to  find  the  gobernador 
held  accountable  for  the  collection  of  taxes  of  all  kinds,  whether 
for  local  purposes  or  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  rights  (derechos) 
of  the  king  of  Spain.  Naturally,  it  made  no  difference  from  what 
sources  these  taxes  were  derived,  whether  upon  real  or  personal 
property,  or  incomes,  or  movable  goods.  Included  in  the  above 
were  the  duties  of  all  sorts  levied  on  commerce,  exterior  and 
interior,  and  the  tribute  or  capitation  tax  paid  by  both  whites 
and  civilized  Indians.  Under  this  heading  also  came  the  admin- 
istration of  the  numerous  mines,  with  its  own  special  code  of 
laws.5  With  the  responsibility  for  collecting  the  revenues  there 
went  a  responsibility  for  their  expenditure,  and  this  covered 
disbursements  of  all  kinds,  whether  for  local  or  imperial  pur- 
poses, such  as  the  subsidies  to  the  mother  country  and  the  neigh- 
boring colonies,  the  appropriations  for  the  military  and  civil 
service,  and  the  carrying  out  of  public  improvements.  This 
appropriation  of  money  for  public  improvements  meant  nothing 
less  than  the  entire  direction  of  the  building  and  maintenance 
of  all  public  works,  from  roads,  bridges,  fortifications,  and  drain- 
age canals,  to  the  creation  of  new  town  sites,  public  markets, 


s  For  everything  relating  to  the  revenue  system,  recourse  should  be  had 
the  first  instance  to  vol.  iii,  chap.  28,  of  Bancroft's  History  of  Mexico, 
ind  in  the  second,  for  detailed  information,  to  the  Historia  General  de  Seal 
Hacienda,  by  Fonseca  and  Urrutia.  The  most  interesting  code  of  mining 
laws,  known  as  the  Beales  Ordenansas  de  la  Mineria,  contains  a  complete 
ligest  of  the  laws  relating  to  mines  and  mining. 


104          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

granaries,  and  foundling  asylums.  The  viceroy  as  governor  was 
further  expected  to  increase  the  revenue  and  at  the  same  time 
to  encourage  industries  and  generally  promote  his  people's  wel- 
fare by  strict  control  and  administration  of  the  numerous  royal 
monopolies,  which,  though  perhaps  primarily  revenue-producing, 
covered  a  great  many  of  the  leading  industries  of  the  country, 
from  the  production  of  precious  metals,  mentioned  above,  and 
the  tobacco  industry,  to  such  minor  activities  as  the  manufacture 
of  playing  cards  and  the  licensing  of  cock  fights  and  the  venders 
of  snow. 

From  this  statement  of  the  viceroy's  civil  functions  it  would 
seem  necessary  to  assume  that  he  would  regulate  rather  strictly 
all  matters  relating  to  commerce  and  trade,  but  this  was  by  no 
means  the  case.  For  the  general  movement  of  internal  trade  he 
was  indeed  responsible,  but  so  minute  was  the  oversight  main- 
tained by  the  home  government  in  this  all-important  branch  of 
colonial  affairs  that  the  viceroy  was  left  comparatively  little  dis- 
cretion.6 The  Madrid  government,  acting  through  the  Casa  de 
Contratacion,  or  India  House,  at  Cadiz,  relieved  the  viceroy  of 
everything  but  a  very  general  supervision  of  the  Mexican  end  of 
the  trade  with  Spain.7  He  was  obliged,  it  is  true,  to  attend  more 
carefully  to  the  commerce  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  passing 
through  the  port  of  Acapulco,  but  all  things  considered,  matters 
of  p-^terpfll  |r«dp  did  not  loom  very  large  on  the  horizon  of  the 
viceroy 's  responsibilities. 

There  were,  however,  even  after  this  enumeration,  a  number 
of  civil  duties  left  to  the  viceroy-governor,  of  which  only  two 


e  As  the  subject  of  colonial  trade,  its  regulation  by  the  mother  country, 
and  the  mutual  effects  upon  both,  have  been  topics  of  perennial  interest, 
a  number  of  good  secondary  accounts  have  been  written.  A  partial  list 
is  as  follows:  Bourne,  Spain  in  America,  chap.  19;  Moses,  South  America 
on  the  Eve  of  the  Emancipation,  chap.  13 ;  and  Moses,  The  Establishment  of 
Spanish  Bule  in  America,  chap.  3. 

7  The  general  reader  will  find  the  Casa  de  Contratacion  briefly  but 
clearly  treated  in  Moses,  Spanish  Eule  in  America,  chap.  3,  while  reference 
may  still  be  made  to  Veitia  Linage,  Norte  de  la  Contratacion  de  las  Indias 
Occidentales  (1672).  For  the  most  recent  statement  of  the  place  of  the 
Casa  de  Contratacion  in  Spanish  history,  see  the  essay  of  J.  Piernas 
Hurtado.  The  laws  defining  the  viceroy's  duties  during  the  earlier  period 
are  conveniently  assembled  in  Solorzano,  Politica  Indiana,  vol.  ii.  There 
is  no  satisfactory  treatment  of  the  above  points  in  any  secondary  work. 
For  references  to  primary  sources,  see  chapters  iii  and  vi  of  this  thesis. 


1913J  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  105 

can  come  in  for  mention  here.  The  appointment  of  a  small  army 
of  subordinates  in  the  civil  service  was  one  of  his  opportunities 
for  good  or  evil,  though  this  power  was  fenced  about  with  restric- 
tions. Last  of  all,  the  governor  was  also  a  judge.  This  side  of 
his  activities  had  undergone  many  changes  during  the  three 
centuries  of  viceregal  government,  and  was  to  be  subjected  to 
still  more  notable  modifications  before  the  eighteenth  century 
was  over.  But  before  the  reforms  of  Charles  III,  the  viceroy 
was  president  of  the  supreme  court,  or  audiencia,  and  possessed 
of  a  variety  of  ways  of  interfering  with  the  administration  of 
justice.  As  will  be  pointed  out  further  on,  there  was  a  great 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  how  far  these  judicial  powers  should 
extend,  and  the  viceroys  often  complained  of  their  diminution 
as  hampering  their  influence  and  usefulness.  The  deep-seated 
historic  rivalry  between  the  chief  executive  of  Mexico  and  the 
supreme  court  found  partial  vent  in  a  struggle  over  just  this 
point.  Evidently  the  kings  of  Spain  had  become  persuaded  to 
take  the  side  of  the  audiencia,  and  convinced  that  the  viceroys 
had  abused  their  judicial  office,  for  the  latter,  gradually  stripped 
of  all  real  power  as  judges,  were  ultimately  left  as  mere  ex-officio 
presidents  of  the  audiencia. 

2.  It  was  in  his  second  capacity,  as  captain-general,  that  the 
viceroy  possessed  some  of  his  most  distinctive  powers  in  the 
administrative  hierarchy  of  New  Spain.  The  supreme  military 
command  over  all  the  military  and  naval  forces,8  the  militia  of 
the  provinces,  and  the  police  of  the  capital,  was  vested  in  the  vice- 
roy as  captain-general,  and  so  extensive  and  important  were  these 
functions  that  some  writers  have  asserted  that  they  quite  over- 
shadowed the  civil  ones  of  the  viceroy  as  governor.  It  is  cer- 


s  There  was  really  no  navy  or  considerable  collection  of  naval  vessels 
in  the  colonies  independent  of  the  control  of  the  minister  of  marine  at 
Madrid.  In  this  respect  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  was  saved  some  of  the 
responsibility  attached  to  the  office  of  governor-general  in  India,  though 
this  statement  requires  some  qualification.  There  was  under  the  direction 
of  the  Mexican  government  a  number  of  coast-guard  vessels  and  revenue 
cutters,  and  on  the  Pacific  coast,  at  different  times,  a  few  larger  vessels. 
The  hospital  at  Vera  Cruz  was  for  sailors  as  well  as  soldiers,  and  was 
maintained  out  of  Mexican  revenues.  See  Eevilla  Gigedo,  Instruction 
Eeservada,  art.  683.  For  a  discussion  of  the  viceroy  and  the  navy  of  New 
Spain,  see  chap,  iv  of  this  thesis,  where  likewise  will  be  found  references 
to  the  primary  sources. 


106          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

tainly  undeniable  that  the  viceroy's  responsibility  for  national 
defense  against  a  foreign  enemy  and  for  internal  order  against 
hostile  natives  or  disaffected  citizens  was  at  times  the  most  serious 
one  he  had  to  bear,  but  it  may  be  asserted  with  equal  positiveness 
that  this  pre-eminence  of  the  military  over  the  civil  operated  in 
the  main  as  an  impediment  to  the  highest  peaceful  development 
of  the  country.  In  the  early  days,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  be- 
fore the  rule  of  the  Spaniard  had  been  fully  established,  the 
viceroy  was  in  effect  the  commanding  general  of  an  army  of 
occupation,  so  that  there  was  little  room  for  anything  else  but 
the  rule  of  a  soldier.  The  earlier  viceroys,  and  their  predecessors, 
the  adelantados,  were  therefore,  of  necessity,  military  chiefs  first 
and  civil  administrators  afterward,  and  right  down  to  the  war 
of  independence  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  viceroys  were 
essentially  military  men,  very  often  with  little  else  than  a  mili- 
tary education  and  experience.  It  was  a  very  common  thing 
for  the  road  to  the  palace  in  Mexico  to  lead  from  a  lieuten- 
ancy-general in  the  army,  through  the  post  of  captain-general 
of  Cuba,  as  a  preliminary  to  the  viceregal  dignity.  It  would 
seem  that  a  purely  civil  training  was  a  bar  to  high  preferment 
in  the  colonial  service,  and  such  a  condition  of  affairs  could  not, 
without  a  miracle,  but  have  impaired  the  civil  administration.  It 
is  not  possible  to  go  quite  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  distinctly 
military  viceroys,  during  the  period  under  consideration,  gave 
direct  evidence  of  incapacity  for  office  because  of  their  military 
antecedents.  There  was  no  real  civilian  viceroy  with  whom  they 
could  be  compared,  and  the  man  who  is  generally  looked  upon 
as  the  ablest  of  them,  the  younger  Revilla  Gigedo,  was  a  soldier, 
while  the  great  Galvez  himself  was  an  intendant  in  the  royal 
army  before  he  entered  upon  his  career  as  the  reforming  states- 
man of  New  Spain.9  One  cannot  avoid  instituting  a  comparison 


»  Villarroel,  vol.  i,  part  ii,  p.  23,  in  his  comments  on  the  military  char- 
acter of  the  Mexican  viceroys,  speaks  of  their  capacity  as  captains-general 
as  their  "primitive  function":  ....  "que  es  la  primitiva  de  los  Exmos. 
Sres.  Vireyes  en  calidad  de  Capitanes  Generales. "  Throughout,  Villarroel 
gives  the  impression  that  the  military  viceroys  were  not  very  expert  in 
overcoming  the  difficulties  that  arose  from  trying  to  administer  a  civil 
office. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  107 

between  the  history  of  the  British  in  India  and  the  Spaniards 
in  America  and  reflecting  upon  what  the  India  service  would 
have  lost  had  there  never  been  at  the  head  of  affairs  any  but 
strictly  military  men,  and  if  Clive  and  Hastings  had  been  barred 
from  office  because  they  were  civilians.  A  disposition  to  condemn 
the  Spanish  practice  in  this  regard  must  be  strengthened  by 
the  knowledge  that  the  non-military  viceroys  of  New  Spain  were 
archbishops.  From  the  point  of  view  of  viceregal  authority,  how- 
ever, the  office  of  captain-general  was  a  gain,  and  tended  toward 
that  unity  of  command  which  has  not  always  been  secured  in 
India. 

3.  In  addition  to  being  head  of  the  civil  administration  as 
governor  and  commander-in-chief  of  all  branches  of  the  military 
service  as  captain-general,  the  viceroy  enjoyed  the  position  of  the 
king's  direct  representative  as  the  civil  head  of  the  church  with 
the  title  of  vice-patrono,10  or  vice-patron.  This  side  of  the  vice- 
roy's activities  had  been  developed  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  fact  as  early  as  the  days  when  the  conquistadores  and 
adelantados  ceased  to  be  mere  soldiers  and  seekers  after  gold,  and 
began  to  take  on  the  character  of  heads  of  a  civilized  state.  The 
relations  of  church  and  state  had  been  settled  in  Spain,  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  during  the  reign  of  the 
Catholic  rulers,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  had  been  settled  in 
nearly  every  important  particular  to  the  advantage  of  the  state. 
Succeeding  struggles  between  the  kings  of  Spain  and  the  popes 
had  brought  about  only  minor  changes,  so  that  very  little  can  be 
said  about  any  development  or  decrease  of  ecclesiastical  privileges 
during  the  rule  of  the  Spaniard  in  America.  The  relative  posi- 
tions of  king  and  pope  in  Europe  had  been  carried  to  Mexico  by 
their  respective  representatives,  the  viceroy  and  the  archbishop, 
with  a  minimum  of  friction  or  difficulties  of  any  kind.  Thus  it 
was  that  the  rights  of  patronage  which  belonged  to  the  Spanish 


10  The  works  of  Bancroft  contain  rather  more  than  an  introduction 
to  the  history  and  constitution  of  the  church  in  Mexico,  as  may  be  seen 
in  the  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  681-731.  See  also  Moses,  Spanish  Eule  in 
America,  chap,  x,  and  his  South  America  on  the  Eve  of  Emancipation, 
chap.  vi. 


108  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

kings  came  to  be  connected  naturally  enough  with  their  repre- 
sentatives in  the  New  Spain,  the  Mexican  viceroys.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  explain  in  detail,  in  this  historical  introduction,  how 
the  viceroy  administered  the  real  patronato,  but  it  may  be  stated 
that  these  matters  reached  their  final  form  by  the  time  of  the  vice- 
roys Flores  and  Revilla  Gigedo,  1787  to  1794.  These  additional 
ecclesiastical  responsibilities  added,  of  course,  to  the  difficulties 
of  the  viceregal  office,  and  were  only  partially  compensated  for 
by  the  enhancement  of  the  viceroy's  dignity  and  prestige.  As 
a  matter  of  common  practice,  the  Mexican  authorities  interfered 
as  little  as  possible  with  the  affairs  of  the  church,  and  the  great 
exception,  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  in  1767,  was  entirely  the 
result  of  orders  from  the  home  government. 

When  it  comes  to  considering  the  changes  which  were  made 
in  the  powers  of  the  viceroys,  from  the  very  beginning  to  the  out- 
break of  the  War  of  Mexican  Independence,  one  must  be  pre- 
pared to  believe  that  the  changes  were  considerable  both  in  num- 
bers and  effect.  During  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  Span- 
ish rule  before  the  days  of  Charles  III,  it  had  been  found  neces- 
sary to  impose  some  sort  of  check  upon  the  king's  chief  repre- 
sentative in  the  colonies,  who  had  at  the  beginning  of  this  period 
such  vast  and  indefinite  powers.  A  more  careful  consideration  of 
this  large  question  will  be  taken  up  in  chapters  II  and  VII,  but 
a  preliminary  word  or  two  must  be  said  in  this  connection.  The 
whole  system  of  checks  and  balances  directed  against  the  vice- 
roys happens  to  be  one  of  the  better  known  aspects  of  the  Mexican 
colonial  government,  but,  contrary  to  what  is  commonly  under- 
stood, this  system  was  in  its  completed  form  the  result  of  long 
experience  and  a  great  number  of  changes.11 

The  perfectly  normal  and  obvious  thing  to  do,  when  it  is 
desired  to  tie  the  hands  of  a  governor  or  viceroy,  is  to  impose 
upon  that  official  a  body  of  responsible  colleagues,  which  English- 


11  The  numerous  changes  in  the  relations  of  the  principal  officials  of  a 
Spanish  dependency  and  the  various  kinds  of  remedial  legislation  enacted 
by  the  mother  country  indicated  that  the  Spanish  system  was  not  utterly 
rigid  and  unadaptable.  It  is  probable  that  the  viceroy's  powers  were 
changed  as  much  by  attempted  reforms  as  those  of  any  similar  official  in 
the  colonies  of  other  European  nations. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  109 

speaking  people  call  a  cpunei|.  Such  a  body  was  imposed  upon 
the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  under 
the  name  of  an  audiencia,  and  in  order  to  guarantee  the  independ- 
ence of  this  body  it  was  allowed  to  correspond  directly  with  the 
home  government  without  the  viceroy  as  an  intermediary.  As  a 
further  means  of  holding  the  viceroy  to  his  duty,  the  well-known 
method  of  taking  official  account  of  his  administration  was  ac- 
complished through  the  institution  known  as  a  residencies.  This 
was  in  substance  a  trial  conducted  by  the  crown  with  the  intent 
of  bringing  to  light  any  malpractices  of  which  the  retiring  vice- 
roy might  have  been  guilty  during  his  official  term.  It  was  not 
only  a  means  of  setting  right  any  wrongdoing  or  injustice  which 
could  be  remedied  after  such  a  lapse  of  time,  but  it  was  also  re- 
garded as  giving  a  significant  warning  to  possible  future  violators 
of  the  law.  This  combination  of  the  audiencia  and  the  residencia 
constituted  the  approved  method  of  keeping  the  viceroy  well  in 
hand;  but  they  had  broken  down  utterly  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  the  reforms  inaugurated  by  Galvez12 
brought  about  a  complete  readjustment  of  the  relations  of  the 
viceroy  to  his  superiors  in  Madrid  and  to  his  colleagues  and 
subordinates  in  Mexico. 

It  now  seems  appropriate  to  recount  in  the  briefest  possible 
compass  the  history  of  the  viceregal  government  from  its  estab- 
lishment in  1535,  under  the  great  Mendoza,  to  the  position  in 
which  it  was  found  in  the  reign  of  Charles  III.  In  the  beginning, 
it  was  an  easy  transition  when  looking  about  for  a  suitable  repre- 
sentative of  the  king  for  his  American  possessions,  simply  to 
transplant  thither  that  officer  so  well  known  in  Spain,  the  viceroy. 
The  Kingdom  of  Spain  was  really  composed  of  a  number  of 
independent  sovereignties,  united  by  the  historical  accident  that 
they  all  had  the  same  individual  for  king.  This  theory  of  the 
personal  union  of  states  was  transferred  to  America,  and  in  the 


12  There  is  a  certain  assumption  in  constantly  attributing  these  reforms 
so  exclusively  to  Galvez.  It  has  never  been  shown  satisfactorily  just  who 
was  responsible  for  many  of  the  measures  generally  credited  to  Galvez 's 
administration  of  the  department  of  the  Indies.  Florida  Blanca,  in  his 
celebrated  Instruction  Beservada,  implies  that  Galvez  was  the  man. 


110  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

same  manner  as  the  king  of  Spain  had  a  personal  representative 
called  a  viceroy,  in  each  of  his  kingdoms  of  Valencia,  Aragon, 
Navarre,  and  the  others,  he  appointed  a  similar  representative 
with  the  same  title  for  his  kingdom  of  the  Indies.  This  vast 
territory  had  later  to  be  broken  up  into  separate  kingdoms,  as 
the  Spaniards  called  them,  such  as  New  Spain  or  Mexico,  Peru, 
New  Granada,  and  finally  in  ITTS^JRio  de  la  Plata,  or  Argentina, 
but  this  subdivision  of  the  American  territory  had  no  constitu- 
tional bearings  on  the  relation  of  these  dependencies  to  the 
crown. 

These  first  great  royal  agents  had  been  sent  out  with  very  ill- 
defined  authority,  and  although  they  abused  it,  in  distant 
America  the  office  was  found  to  be  indispensable  and  could  not 
be  abolished  as  it  had  been  in  Spain  proper.  These  shorter  dis- 
tances had  made  it  possible  for  the  kings  to  develop  an  autocratic 
and  highly  centralized  administration,  and  to  put  themselves  in 
a  position  to  dispense  with  their  all  too  powerful  vice-kings.13 
In  the  American  kingdoms  the  viceroys  were  retained,  but  went 
through  an  evolution  which  constitutes  the  staple  of  the  adminis- 
trative history  of  Spanish  America.  Thus  it  came  about  that,  by 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  while  there  remained  in  Spain 
itself  only  the  viceroy  of  Navarre,  occupying  a  position  highly 
ornamental  and  dignified,  but  actually  without  political  power, 
there  had  developed  in  the  New  World  four  distinct  viceroyalties, 
each  with  an  elaborate  machinery  of  government  and  tending 
more  and  more  to  come  under  the  direct  control  and  guidance  of 
the  king  and  his  department  of  the  Indies. 

The  earliest  agents  of  the  Spanish  king  in  America  who  had 
administrative  duties  proper,  in  contradistinction  to  those  of 
the  mere  explorers  and  conquerors,  were  not  hampered  by  any 
ingenious  system  of  checks  and  balances  such  as  was  soon  to  be 


is  The  most  helpful  secondary  account  of  the  general  position  of  the 
viceroy  and  his  place  in  the  history  of  Spanish  institutions  is  that  of  the 
brilliant  French  scholar,  Desdevises  du  Dezert.  In  vol.  ii,  chap.  3,  is  his 
discussion  of  the  provincial  administration  in  Spain  and  America,  and 
though  it  is  lucid  and  well  arranged  it  is  not  sufficiently  detailed  to  enable 
one  to  rest  satisfied  with  this  treatment.  All  the  secondary  writers  have 
something  to  say  on  the  subject,  but  no  others  deserve  special  mention. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  111 

invented  to  keep  their  successors  properly  under  the  control  of  the 
Madrid  government.  They  were  not  only  far  removed  from 
Madrid  by  distance  expressed  in  geographical  miles,  but  they 
were  also  separated  by  the  long  and  uncertain  time  required  to 
exchange  despatches.  This  excessive  difficulty  of  communication 
placed  these  adelantados  so  far  beyond  anything  like  direct  super- 
vision that  they  got  out  of  hand  and  became  in  consequence  a 
source  of  endless  anxiety  to  their  distant  European  superiors.14 
Desperate  adventurers  of  the  Cortes-Pizarro  type  did  not  lend 
themselves  readily  to  the  role  of  civil  administrators  obediently 
taking  orders  from  a  remote  Council  of  the  Indies.  That  cele- 
brated council  had  been  created  in  the  reign  of  Isabella,  but  re- 
quired a  long  period  of  years  to  gain  experience  and  capacity 
for  the  great  work  expected  of  it,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that 
this  body  of  elderly  grandees,  bureau  clerks,  and  ecclesiastics 
found  it  difficult  to  command  the  respect  and  obedience  of  the 
first  conquerors  of  America. 

Although  these  conditions  were  bound  not  to  be  permanent, 
and  were  succeeded  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
by  an  era  of  orderly  government  and  internal  peace,  certain  other 
evils  developed  which  made  clear  the  necessity  of  restraining  the 
viceroys  from  ruling  their  territories  like  independent  kings. 
By  the  eighteenth  century  the  danger  was  passed  that  the  vice- 
roys would  attempt  to  cut  out  for  themselves  independent  states 
in  defiance  of  the  king,  but  a  new  set  of  conditions  had  grown 
up  which  called  for  interference  on  the  part  of  such  an  en- 
lightened despot  as  Charles  III,  quite  as  imperatively  as  the 
violence  of  the  sixteenth  century  might  have  done.  This  greatest 
of  the  Spanish  Bourbons  came  to  the  throne  in  1759,  after  a  long 
apprenticeship  as  King  of  Naples,  and  very  early  surrounded  him- 
self with  capable  ministers  such  as  Aranda,  Campomanes,  and 
Florida  Blanca.  Before  very  long  he  was  in  the  full  tide  of  that 


i*  As  an  illustration  of  the  anarchy  which  was  so  common  during  the 
first  period  of  conquest,  and  of  the  insubordination  so  often  shown  by  the 
conquerors,  it  is  sufficient  to  point  to  the  difficulties  arising  between 
Cortes  and  Velasquez,  and  the  open  war  which  was  waged  for  a  time 
between  Almagro  and  the  brothers  Pizarro. 


112          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [V<>L- 1 

reform  legislation  which  attacked  not  only  all  sorts  of  abuses 
and  medieval  survivals  in  Spain  proper,  but  also  those  evil  con- 
ditions in  the  colonies  that  were  brought  to  his  notice. 

These  conditions  were  not  of  the  kind  which  present  any 
peculiar  difficulties,  as  far  as  their  intelligibility  is  concerned,  to 
an  American  of  the  present  day.  The  Spanish  colonial  adminis- 
tration was  honeycombed  with  what  is  now  familiarly  called 
"graft."  In  spite  of  the  best  intentioned  legislation  on  the  part 
of  the  mother  country,  so  flagrant  had  become  the  abuses  of  the 
Spanish  domination  that  a  fresh  attack  upon  the  powers  of  the 
viceroy,  as  the  central  figure  of  that  domination,  was  bound  to 
come.  Probably  no  more  scathing  indictment  of  the  work  of  any 
government  has  ever  been  printed  than  the  one  drawn  up  by 
Admirals  Juan  and  Ulloa  in  1736,  and  handed  to  Philip  V,  in 
the  innocent  form  of  a  report  of  a  tour  of  inspection  of  the 
military  and  naval  establishments  of  Peru.15  These  Noticias 
Secretas,  or  secret  memoranda,  were  in  effect  an  expose  of  the 
worst  features  of  the  Spanish  rule.  This  celebrated  report,  writ- 
ten for  the  most  part  in  a  caustic,  censorious  tone,  particularly 
when  dealing  with  the  clergy,  exhibited  a  dreary  picture  of  a 
country  afflicted  with  an  administrative  dry  rot,  which  left  the 
native  population  cruelly  oppressed  by  the  very  public  officials 
who  were  designed  to  be  their  protectors,  and  which  left  the 
administration  of  justice,  for  native  and  Spaniard  alike,  corrupt 
and  incredibly  dilatory.  Furthermore,  if  the  mass  of  evidence 
bearing  on  this  point  is  to  be  believed,  the  administration  was 
everywhere,  when  not  actually  dishonest,  antiquated  and  ineffi- 
cient to  a  superlative  degree. 

Apparently  the  officials  of  the  home  government  were  too 
interested  in  the  continuation  of  abuses  or  too  lethargic  to  be 
aroused  even  by  such  a  recital  as  that  of  Juan  and  Ulloa,  and  the 


10  The  very  important  question  of  the  degree  of  credibility  due  the 
Noticias  Secretas  has  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  yet  been  raised.  It  is  not  to 
be  doubted  that  there  were  specific  examples  in  Peru  of  every  abuse 
attacked  by  Juan  and  Ulloa,  but  the  general  picture  drawn  by  them  may 
reasonably  excite  suspicion  from  its  extremely  dismal  tone.  The  discus- 
sion of  the  government  by  the  corregidors  (part  ii,  pp.  230-265)  suggests 
many  analogous  conditions  in  Mexico. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  113 

king  himself  permitted  their  report  to  slumber  unheeded  for  the 
rest  of  his  reign.  But  after  the  accession  of  Charles  III,  a  greater 
sensitiveness  to  various  forms  of  misgovernment  was  observable. 
Only  two  years  after  his  coming  to  the  throne,  in  the  year  1761, 
there  was  sent  to  New  Spain  in  an  inquisitorial  capacity  one  Jose 
de  Galvez,  with  the  title  of  visitador  general.  A  visitor-general,  it 
may  be  explained  in  passing,  was  a  direct  personal  representative 
of  the  king,  a  kind  of  legatus  a  latere,  clothed  with  extraordinary 
powers,  limited  only  by  the  particular  instructions  which  were 
given  him  with  his  commission.16  He  was,  in  civil  and  military, 
what  the  grand  inquisitor  was  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  except  that 
the  visitor-general  was  not  restricted  in  his  investigations  by  any 
vain  distinctions  between  the  temporal  and  spiritual  domains. 
The  office  of  visitor-general  had  been  used  in  Spanish  America 
back  in  the  days  of  the  earliest  viceroys,  and  the  early  records  are 
filled  with  evidences  of  the  conflict  between  these  two  high  offices. 
The  traditional  enmity  was  to  be  seen  again  as  soon  as  Galvez 
arrived  on  the  scene,  and,  owing  to  a  dispute  over  the  extent  of  his 
powers,  he  was  not  able  to  begin  work  until  1764. 

Galvez  was  expected  to  see  things,  as  it  were,  with  the  eyes 
of  the  king,  to  investigate  all  sorts  of  men  and  conditions  even 
to  the  viceroy  himself,  and  to  report  back  what  he  actually  saw. 
Such  a  commission  was  not  likely  to  make  him  a  popular  per- 
sonage in  the  viceroyalty,  and  contemporaries  were  singularly 
unanimous  in  declaring  that  he  saw  everything  that  could  pos- 
sibly be  construed  to  be  bad.  His  rancorous  disposition  and  in- 
tolerance toward  everything  which  was  inefficient,  combined  to 
make  him  the  proper  antidote  for  the  maladministrators  of 
Mexico.  In  his  series  of  informes,  or  reports  to  the  king,  and  in 
his  instructions  to  the  viceroys  we  have  evidence  of  the  thorough- 
ness of  his  probings  into  political,  economic,  and  social  abuses. 
It  must  have  been  made  apparent  to  the  Madrid  government,  as 


is  There  does  not  exist  any  work  upon  the  nature  and  operation  of  the 
office  of  the  visitor-general,  nor  even  a  chapter  in  any  of  the  general  his- 
tories which  can  be  regarded  as  in  any  sense  satisfactory.  This  whole 
subject  must  be  worked  up  de  novo  from  the  sources.  Occasionally,  also, 
an  ecclesiastical  visitor-general  was  sent  out  to  inspect  the  affairs  of  the 
church. 


114          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     ["VOL.  1 

a  result  of  these  reports,  that  some  drastic  changes  were  neces- 
sary, and  that  an  audiencia  during  a  viceroy's  incumbency  and 
a  residencia  at  the  end  of  it  were  no  longer  guarantees  of  either 
an  honest  or  an  efficient  rule.  The  demands  for  reforms  which  had 
been  made  timidly  and  infrequently  by  some  of  the  preceding 
viceroys,  and  the  earnest  insistence  for  the  same  reforms  now 
made  in  Spain  by  Campomanes  and  Jovellanos,  fortified  by  the 
influence  of  Galvez,  resulted  in  a  general  attack  all  along  the 
line.  The  decrees  of  1765  and  1768  began  the  downfall  of  the 
Spanish  mercantile  system,  and  the  great  free-trade  decree  of 
1778  revolutionized  the  trade  relations  between  Spain  and  her 
colonies.17 

The  general  statement  that  in  modern  times  there  has  been 
a  constant  tendency  of  the  work  of  civilized  governments  to  be- 
come greater  and  more  complicated  is  certainly  applicable  to 
Mexico  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  evidence  from  the  sources 
is  conclusive  that  the  viceroys  in  the  days  of  Galvez  were  over- 
worked, and  that  their  responsibilities  were  too  numerous  for  any 
one  man  to  bear.18  The  idea  of  the  older  and  simpler  days  of 
the  viceregal  government,  of  the  concentration  of  all  forms  of 
governmental  activity  in  the  hands  of  one  chief  executive,  might 
do  very  well  for  a  Philip  II  in  the  sixteenth  century,  or  a 
Napoleon  even  in  the  nineteenth  century,  but  was  most  certainly 
found  wanting  for  the  average  viceroy  who  was  trained  in  the 


i?  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  these  first  great  reforms  were  directed 
against  that  system  of  commercial  restrictions  which  had  borne  most 
severely  on  the  economic  development  of  the  colonies.  The  exact  history 
of  the  decree  of  October  12,  1778,  has  never  been  unravelled.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  Cevallos,  in  Buenos  Aires,  was  the  first  provincial 
ruler  to  put  in  effect  the  provisions  later  embodied  in  this  act.  A  clear, 
brief  account  of  these  commercial  reforms  is  in  De  Lannoy  and  Vander 
Linden,  pp.  389-403. 

is  Villarroel  discusses  the  unnecessary  demands  upon  the  viceroy's 
time  and  strength  in  his  Enfermedades  Politicas,  i,  part  ii,  p.  23:  "Las  mas 
grave  y  pesada  carga  de  los  Senores  Vireyes,  la  de  gastar  diariamente 
quatro  6  seis  horas  en  el  Despacho  de  los  Expedientes  contenciosos,  que 
la  ponen  de  manifiesto  los  dos  Secretarios  de  Gobierno,  llebando  regular- 
mente  puestos  las  Decretas,  que  ellos  creen,  que  corresponden,  reducidas 
a  pase  al  Senor  Fiscal  .  .  .  .  y  pase  al  Asesor."  He  urged  that  the 
asesor  general  be  given  the  duty  of  first  examining  these  despatches,  and 
reducing  them  in  numbers,  so  that  when  only  the  most  important  ones 
remained  they  be  submitted  to  the  viceroy  himself. 


1913J  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  115 

camp,  and  found  himself,  past  middle  life,  in  a  maze  of  admin- 
istrative duties.  The  changes  which  were  now  soon  to  be  intro- 
duced and  which  we  must,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  present, 
regard  as  the  keynote  of  Spanish  American  administrative  his- 
tory on  the  eve  of  independence,  were  devised  primarily  to  relieve 
the  viceroy  of  his  excessive  official  burdens,  and  incidentally  to 
secure  more  immediate  control,  by  the  home  government,  of  cer- 
tain branches  of  the  administration.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  under- 
stand that  the  chief  executive  of  New  Spain,  who  was  obliged 
to  spend  one-third  of  his  time  in  holidays  and  ceremonies,  and 
four  hours  of  each  working  day  in  the  drudgery  of  examining 
and  signing  despatches,  could  not  keep  a  firm  grip  on  all  depart- 
ments for  which  he  was  responsible. 

The  change  which  most  profoundly  affected  the  position  of 
the  viceroy,  both  in  respect  to  his  actual  direction  of  the  govern- 
ment in  Mexico  and  to  his  relation  to  the  king  in  Spain,  was 
embodied  in  the  Decree  of  the  Intendants,  of  the  year  1786.  An 
intendant  was  originally  a  kind  of  provincial  governor  in  France, 
under  the  old  regime,  and  had  been  carried  to  Spain  along  with 
the  Bourbon  dynasty  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  office  had  been  suppressed  in  Spain  in  1718,  only 
to  be  revived  in  1749,  by  a  decree  which  formed  the  basis  of 
the  before-mentioned  decree  of  1786.  It  was  reserved  for  Charles 
III  to  attempt  to  transplant  this  office,  with  certain  modifications, 
to  the  colonies,  and  intendants  were  first  heard  of  there  in  the , 
year  1782,  as  playing  a  very  significant  part  in  the  new  govern- 1 
ment  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata.19  The  trying  of  the  intendants  in 
the  smallest  and  youngest  of  the  viceroyalties  may  have  been 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  political  laboratory  experiment.  Four  years 
later  they  were  brought  to  Mexico  with  the  double  purpose  of 
relieving  and  regulating  the  viceroy. 


is  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  intendants  were  employed  in  Cuba 
even  earlier  than  in  Argentina. 


116  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

It  must  be  explained  in  this  connection  that  previous  to  this 
time  New  Spain20  had  been  divided  into  a  number  of  provinces, 
in  the  main  governed  by  corregidores,  who  were  responsible  direct- 
ly to  their  immediate  chief,  the  viceroy.  Under  these  corregidores 
were  the  leading  local  magistrates,  the  alcaldes  mayores,  whose 
functions  were  mainly  judicial.  Now  it  so  happened  that  in  those 
famous  Noticias  Secretas,  not  to  mention  a  large  number  of  lesser 
known  authorities  on  conditions  in  Spanish  America,  these 
corregidores,  and  of  course  to  a  certain  extent  their  subordinate 
alcaldes  mayores,  received  most  of  the  blame.  A  corregidor  was 
supposed  to  be,  among  other  things,  a  kind  of  Indian  commis- 
sioner with  a  large  responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  these  wards 
of  the  Spanish  nation,  but  the  chance  to  make  money  out  of  their 
official  position  proved  to  be  too  alluring,  so  that  they  were 
singled  out  for  an  early  sacrifice  when  the  real  reforms  began. 
Evidently  the  first-hand  personal  investigation  of  the  clear- 
sighted visitor-general  officially  confirmed  what  had  long  been 
common  knowledge,  and  the  effect  of  the  new  decree  bringing 
in  the  intendants  was  to  sweep  out  of  existence  all  the  corregidores 
and  alcaldes  mayores  and  to  substitute  for  them  governors  with 
general  executive  and  judicial  duties,  but  chiefly  designed  to 
exercise  complete  control  over  provincial  finances.  Furthermore, 
these  intendants,21  as  the  new  provincial  governors  were  called, 
were  to  be  almost  entirely  independent  of  the  viceroy  and,  unlike 
the  corregidores,  were  to  report  directly  to  a  general  superintend- 
ent of  finances,  superintendent e  de  real  hacienda,  who  was  in  turn 
directly  subordinate  to  the  king  and  the  Council  of  the  Indies. 


20  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  be  consistent  in  the  geographical  nomen- 
clature of  Mexico.     Throughout  this  thesis  New  Spain  and  Mexico  are 
used  synonymously,  and  as  including  the  whole  territory  over  which  the 
viceroy  ruled.     Strictly  speaking,  the  Spaniards  meant  by  New  Spain 
only  the  kernel,  as  it  were,  of  what  is  now  included  in  the  Mexican 
Eepublic,  and  referred  loosely  to  the  districts  outside  of  this  kernel  as 
New  Galicia,  New  Biscay,  and  so  forth.    "El  reino  de  Mexico  se  llamaba 
Nueva  Espana    (estrietamente  dicha)    cuando  se  hablaba  de  61  en  contra  - 
posicion  de  la  Nueva  Galicia  o  la  Nueva  Viscaya  o  Nueva  Leon  u  otro 
territorio  seme j ante"  (Eivera,  i,  70). 

21  The  introduction   of  the  intendants  was  warmly  resented  by  the 
viceroys,  who  could  not  but  feel  themselves  deprived  of  one  of  their  chief 
powers.    See  Eevilla  Gigedo,  Instruccidn  Beservada,  pp.  1-3. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  117 

Under  this  new  regime,  by  the  removal  of  the  whole  matter 
of  finance  from  the  viceroy 's  jurisdiction,  there  was  also  removed 
the  chief  temptation  and  opportunity  for  corruption,  besides  im- 
mensely relieving  the  conscientious  viceroy  from  a  state  of  being 
chronically  overworked.     A  new  council,  officially  termed  the  j 
junta  general  de  real  hacienda,  was  established  at  the  capital  I 
with  the  superintendent-general  as  its  president.    This  new  chief 
of  the  financial  end  of  the  government  became,  not  an  official  sub- 
ordinate to  the  viceroy,  but  a  co-ordinate  ruler  over  what  was 
in  some  ways  the  most  important  branch  of  the  government. 

From  the  foregoing  remarks  it  is  apparent  that  the  control 
of  all  financial  matters  was  by  this  decree  of  the  intendants  taken 
from  the  viceroy,  but  such  a  bald  statement  gives  no  idea  of  the 
real  loss  of  power  involved  in  the  transfer.  The  Spanish  word 
hacienda  signifies  a  great  deal  more  than  our  word  finance.  It 
included  not  merely  all  revenues,  but  in  many  cases  the  sources 
of  revenue  as  well,  so  that  the  king's  property  and  the  royal 
monopolies  were  henceforth  to  be  administered  by  the  intendants 
and  not  by  the  subordinates  of  the  viceroy.  From  now  on, 
Mexico  was  to  be  divided  territorially  into  twelve  intendancies, 
while  the  old  corregimientos,  districts  ruled  by  corregidores,  dis- 
appeared. In  some  cases  this  apparently  simple  dividing  up  of 
the  country  was  complicated  by  the  retention  of  the  corregidor 
alongside  of  the  intendant,  or  by  having  both  offices  held  by  one 
man,  but  that  was  an  exceptional  survival  of  the  old  state  of 
things.22 

To  give  some  notion  of  the  importance  of  the  intendants 
under  this  new  system,  it  is  only  necessary  to  mention  the  four 
grand  departments,  or  ramos,  over  which  they  presided.  The 
first  one  enumerated  in  the  law  defining  the  duties  of  the  intend- 
ants was  that  all-important  causa  de  hacienda,  which  has  been 
defined  above  as  the  whole  department  of  revenue  and  finance, 


22  It  is  as  yet  impossible  to  find  anything  like  a  satisfactory  account 
of  the  intendants  without  going  to  the  primary  material.  The  most 
important  single  source  is  the  text  of  the  decree  itself,  though  the  com- 
ments of  Bancroft  and  Villarroel  are  of  some  help.  For  the  results  in 
Argentina,  consult  Quesada. 


118          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

in  the  most  comprehensive  sense.  The  second  was  the  causa  de 
justicia,  or  department  of  justice,  which  included  within  its 
limits  all  the  lower  courts,  in  the  cities  and  small  towns,  in  fact 
everything  below  the  two  supreme  courts,  or  audiencias,  at  Mex- 
ico City  and  Guadalajara.  The  third  was  the  causa  de  guerra, 
or  war  department,  which  must  not  be  understood,  however,  to 
mean  that  the  intendants  were  charged  merely  with  what  we 
would  regard  as  the  civil  duties  of  recruiting  and  maintaining 
soldiers  in  time  of  peace,  or  of  making  only  those  preparations 
which  would  make  field  operations  possible  on  the  outbreak  of 
war,  but  that  they  were  also  responsible,  according  to  the  new  law, 
for  the  equipment,  drill  and  discipline  of  all  the  troops,  regular 
and  militia,  stationed  in  the  intendancy.  The  fourth  was  the 
causa  de  policia,  or  general  police,  which  was  generously  made  to 
include  not  only  policing  the  districts  and  preserving  good  morals, 
but  also  poor  relief,  repair  of  roads  and  fortifications,  and  in- 
numerable similar  duties. 

The  intendant  was  perhaps  the  perfect  representation  of  all 
that  must  seem  to  us  chaotic  and  amorphous  in  the  Spanish 
method  of  governing  men.  He  was  presumed  to  be  the  expert 
financial  officer  of  the  crown,  capable  of  understanding  the  prob- 
lems of  the  incidence  of  taxation  and  the  best  method  of  tapping 
the  public  wealth.  As  a  magistrate,  he  was  empowered  to  issue 
administrative  orders  with  the  force  of  the  law,  and  he  was,  of 
course,  president  of  the  council,  or  ayuntamiento,  of  his  capital 
city.  His  judicial  functions  were  considerable  and  he  had  both 
civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction.  In  some  cases  he  was  authorized 
to  sit  with  other  judges  in  the  hearing  of  suits  in  admiralty.  On 
the  military  side,  he  was  a  sort  of  secretary  of  war  on  a  small 
scale,  and  a  line  and  staff  officer  as  well.  Nearly  everything 
about  his  office  seems  to  involve  a  contradiction,  and  possibly 
nothing  more  than  the  mixture  of  military  and  financial  matters. 
Nevertheless,  this  was  not  peculiar  to  the  intendants  in  Mexico. 
In  Spain  itself  finance  and  war  were  very  often  regarded  as  a 
perfectly  proper  combination,  so  that  there  seemed  nothing  offen- 
sive to  the  Spanish  mind  in  the  commingling  of  these  divers 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  119 

functions.23  In  fact,  the  intendants  of  Spain  were  the  models 
on  which  those  of  the  New  World  were  constructed,  and  a  thor- 
ough trial  of  this  officer  had  been  carried  on  in  Spain  before  his 
introduction  to  the  colonies  was  attempted. 

Enough  has  surely  been  said  to  indicate  what  a  diminution 
of  power  the  viceregal  office  suffered  as  a  result  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  new.  intendant  system,  but,  although  this  was  the 
most  important  of  the  losses  sustained  by  the  viceroy,  it  was  by 
no  means  all.  An  inroad  was  made  even  on  his  dignity  as  captain- 
general,  so  that  this  " primitive  function,"  as  Villarroel  called 
it,  did  not  escape  the  antagonism  of  Galvez.  There  was  during 
this  period  a  loosening  of  the  bonds  which  connected  the  viceroy 
with  the  military  commanders  on  the  frontiers,  and  the  captain- 
general  of  Guatemala  and  the  commandant-general  of  the  Prov- 
incias  Internas  became  rather  less  dependent  in  a  military  way 
on  the  great  proconsul  in  Mexico.  It  is  scarcely  believable,  in 
the  light  of  all  we  know  of  three  centuries  of  Spanish  rule,  that 
there  should  have  come  eventually  such  a  separation  of  the  civil 
and  military  in  Spanish  America  as  there  is  with  the  British 
in  India.  However,  there  were  certainly  some  indications  at 
this  time  that  there  was  a  beginning  of  such  a  splitting  up  of 
the  various  duties  of  the  viceroy  that  there  might  have  developed 
ultimately  a  viceroy  and  commander-in-chief  in  one  person,  with 
the  chief  civil  duties  in  the  hands  of  another. 

The  beginning  of  an  attack  on  the  viceroy 's  judicial  functions 
was  made  by  the  creation  of  a  new  officer  called  the  regente,  who  / 
was  to  displace  the  viceroy  as  the  presiding  officer  of  the  audien- 
cia.  This  position,  which  was  somewhat  analogous  to  that  of  our 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  was  complained  of  bitterly 
as  an  infringement  of  viceregal  prerogatives,  but  it  was  retained 
just  the  same.  Along  the  same  line  and  indicating  a  similar  ten- 
dency was  the  denying  to  the  viceroys  of  the  privilege  of  grant- 


23  For  a  clear  and  interesting  summary  of  the  relation  of  the 
various  royal  ministers  and  their  portfolios  to  one  another,  there  is 
nothing  better  in  English  than  Addison,  Charles  the  Third  of  Spain,  pp. 
104-130. 


120          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

ing  pensions  and  other  rewards  to  any  persons  whatsoever.  Some 
of  these  changes  may  seem  of  minor  consequence,  but  their  sum 
total  was  sufficient  to  modify  in  a  very  serious  manner  the  char- 
acter of  the  highest  office  in  New  Spain. 

In  other  words,  these  reforms  of  Galvez  and  Charles  III  set 
up  a  dual  system  of  administration  in  place  of  a  single,  autocratic 
one,  and  in  such  a  way  that  collusion  between  the  two  elements 
of  that  dual  system  to  oppress  the  natives  or  defraud  the  home 
government  was  well  nigh  impossible.  But  even  after  all  these 
serious  reductions  of  the  powers  of  the  viceroy  of  Mexico,  there 
still  remained  a  residuum  of  authority  which  easily  prevented  his 
lapsing  into  a  mere  passive  spectator  of  what  was  going  on  in 
his  dominions.  It  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  viceroys 
like  Revilla  Gigedo  as  a  sort  of  southern  counterpart  of  the  gov- 
ernor-general of  Canada,  a  political  dignitary  selected  for  his 
engaging  personal  qualities  and  expected  to  concern  himself  prin- 
cipally with  the  laying  of  corner-stones  and  reviewing  of  troops. 
The  viceroy  did  indeed  live  in  a  palace  and  continued  to  be  the 
victim  of  many  elaborate  ceremonials,  but  he  remained  to  the  last 
a  hard-worked  official,  charged  with  the  general  responsibility 
for  the  good  government  of  his  people.  In  many  ways  his  occu- 
pation had  tended  to  become  rather  more  supervisory  and  less 
actually  administrative,  but  this  result  was  almost  certain  to  be 
brought  about  because  of  the  growing  difficulty  and  complexity 
of  his  functions.  He  was  still  charged  with  the  highest  military 
command,  the  exercise  of  the  royal  patronage  in  matters  eccle- 
siastical, and  he  was  still  the  highest  civil  officer  in  the  country. 
Moreover,  it  was  discovered  after  a  few  years'  trial  that  the 
process  of  decentralization  and  division  of  responsibility  had  gone 
too  far  and  the  pendulum  began  to  swing  back.  Before  the  end 
of  the  Spanish  rule  in  Mexico,  the  viceroys  had  recovered  a  part 
of  their  control  over  the  intendants  and  also  the  whole  depart- 
ment of  the  real  hacienda,  but  there  were  not  enough  years  of 
peace  left  to  them  to  give  this  second  change  a  fair  trial,  and  the 
fateful  year  1810  began  a  new  epoch  of  wars  and  revolutions. 


1913]  Smith :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  121 

Haying  concluded  what  is  in  the  nature  of  an  historical  intro- 
duction, with  a  general  survey  of  the  main  points  in  the  govern- 
ment of  New  Spain,  it  may  be  well  to  state  here  what  is  attempted 
in  the  body  of  the  thesis. 

In  the  next  chapter,  dealing  with  the  relations  of  the  viceroy 
to  the  home  government,  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  exhibit  the 
viceroy  as  the  agent  of  the  Spanish  monarchy  in  the  government 
of  its  American  dependencies.  To  understand  this,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  describe  very  briefly  the  machinery  of  Spain's  col- 
onial administration  and  to  point  out  the  relation  of  the  various 
officials,  particularly  the  viceroy,  to  it  and  to  one  another. 

In  chapter  m  the  viceroy  will  be  studied  in  situ,  but  only  in 
his  capacity  as  governor.  His  relation  to  the  executive,  legislative, 
and  judicial  branches  of  the  government,  his  appointing  power 
and  relation  to  the  civil  service,  and  the  specific  problems  and 
acts  of  certain  viceroys  during  the  Galvez  period,  will  be  dealt 
with. 

In  chapter  iv  the  viceroy  as  captain-general  will  be  treated 
after  the  same  manner  as  in  chapter  m,  except  that  this  chapter 
concerns  his  military  instead  of  his  civil  position.  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  military  departments,  the  captain-general's  staff,  the 
number,  character,  and  disposition  of  the  armed  forces,  the  for- 
tified places,  and  so  forth,  will  be  described. 

In  chapter  v,  the  viceroy  as  vice-patron  will  receive  a  some- 
what less  extended  treatment  than  he  is  given  in  his  capacities  as 
governor  or  as  captain-general,  but  the  manner  in  which  the  vice- 
roys managed  to  get  along  with  the  church  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, their  relation  to  the  prelates,  the  councils,  and  the  inquisi- 
tion will  come  in  for  some  explanation. 

Chapter  vi,  although  entitled  the  reforms  of  Galvez,  will  not 
only  treat  of  the  administrative  changes  initiated  by  that  minis- 
ter, but  will  also  explain  the  duties  of  the  superintendent-gen- 
eral of  the  real  hacienda.  As  this  office  was  held,  except  for  a 
short  time,  by  the  viceroy,  a  description  of  the  duties  pertaining 
to  it  will  show  the  position  of  the  viceroy  as  the  chief  financial 
officer  of  the  realm.  As  this  is  described  rather  minutely  in  the 


122           University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

law  of  1786,  creating  the  intendants,  it  seems  advisable  to  make 
a  somewhat  extended  analysis  of  that  law.  Also,  as  the  other 
great  piece  of  reform  legislation  of  the  period  was  the  free-trade 
decree  of  1778,  that  law,  like  the  decree  of  the  intendants,  will 
be  given  careful  examination. 


1913J  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  123 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  VICEROY  WITH  THE  HOME 
GOVERNMENT 

Before  the  position  of  the  viceroy,  in  any  of  its  bearings,  can 
be  understood  adequately,  and  particularly  his  position  in  ref- 
erence to  his  superiors  in  Spain,  it  is  necessary  to  get  a  general 
view  of  that  complex  body  of  administrative  machinery  of  which 
he  was  so  important  a  part.  Like  practically  every  other  political 
institution,  Spain's  devices  for  governing  her  colonies  were  not 
suddenly  created  in  one  day  in  their  complete  form,  but  were 
the  result  of  slow  historical  processes  which  added  a  bit  here  and 
there  and  which  were  still  going  on  even  after  three  hundred 
years  of  change  and  improvement.1  It  is  doubtless  true  that 
Spam's  colonial  institutions  were  the  result  of  too  much  a  priori 
theorizing,  rather  than  of  experience,  but  that  is  a  question  for 
the  student  of  political  theory,  and  all  that  need  be  said  in  this 
connection  is  that  these  institutions  were  provided,  one  after  an- 


i  The  subject-matter  of  the  first  three  or  four  pages  of  this  chapter  may 
be  found  discussed  in  a  large  number  of  secondary  works.  The  best 
critical  writings  on  the  general  question  of  the  relationship  of  Spain  to 
her  American  colonies,  and  consequently  on  the  place  of  the  viceroys,  are 
those  of  the  Mexican  historians  themselves.  The  leader  of  that  school 
of  historians  that  exalts  the  rule  of  the  viceroys  and  looks  back  upon 
the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  the  golden  age  of  Mexican 
history  was  Lucas  Alaman.  In  1852,  he  wrote:  "  ....  no  ha  quedado, 
mas  que  la  sombra  de  un  nombre  en  otro  tiempo  ....  ilustre. ' '  The 
leading  representative  of  that  other  school  of  historians,  which  regarded 
independent  Mexico  as  a  sort  of  legitimate  successor  of  the  empire  of 
Montezuma,  was  Carlos  M.  Bustamante.  The  writers  of  this  school 
regarded  the  Spanish  domination  as  a  violent  subversion  of  the  rights  of 
the  natives  and  always  seemed  inclined  to  take  a  harsh  view  of  the 
Spanish  regime.  The  leading  modern  critic  who  fairly  succeeded  in 
avoiding  these  two  extremes  was  Augustin  Eivera.  His  Principios 
Criticos  Sobre  el  Vireinato  de  la  Nueva  Espana,  in  three  volumes,  is  too 
philosophical,  but  it  is  interesting  for  its  point  of  view. 


124          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

other,  as  the  exigencies  of  the  case  seemed  to  demand,  and  they 
were  not  extemporized  as  soon  as  the  voyages  of  the  first  explorers 
and  conquerors  had  given  Spain  colonies  to  rule  over. 

When  the  difficulties  and  novelty  of  the  problems  confront- 
ing them  are  considered,  it  would  have  been  perhaps  utterly  unT 
reasonable  to  expect  the  Spaniards  to  avoid  most  of  the  mistakes 
in  government  and  their  resultant  evils.  There  were  practically 
no  historical  precedents  to  guide  the  first  European  states  in  their 
handling  of  colonial  questions,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
Spain  came  to  transplant  her  own  political  system,  as  it  had  been 
worked  out  in  Europe,  directly  to  her  American  dependencies 
with  only  those  modifications  which  experience  from  time  to  time 
suggested.  It  is,  however,  remarkable  that  the  newly  acquired 
dependencies  should  have  been  given  immediately  and  without  a 
struggle  the  same  constitutional  position  within  the  empire  that 
was  demanded  in  vain  two  hundred  years  later  by  the  English 
colonies  in  North  America. 

Even  during  the  lifetime  of  Columbus  the  necessity  of  pro- 
viding for  a  permanent,  civilized  government,  in  contradistinction 
to  fitting  out  exploring  and  military  expeditions,  was  recognized 
by  the  Catholic  kings,  and  various  civil  magistrates  were  sent  to 
the  West  Indies,  the  first  lands  occupied  by  the  Spaniards,  to 
administer  the  law,  to  supervise  the  granting  of  lands  to  the 
European  settlers,  and  to  regulate  the  relations  between  these 
settlers  and  the  natives.  Theoretically,  the  king  had  absolute 
power  in  America  even  if  such  were  not  still  the  case  in  Spain, 
for  there  were  no  traditional  checks  on  the  royal  power  in  the 
Indies  such  as  had  survived  in  Spain  itself  from  the  Middle  Ages ; 
but  in  the  matter  of  actual  administration  neither  such  an  inter- 
national figure  as  Charles  V,  nor  even  such  a  born  administrator 
as  Philip  II,  could  actually  direct  American  affairs  in  detail.  There 
arose  immediately  a  need  for  a  body  of  men  who  were  experienced 
in  American  affairs,  not  only  to  advise  the  king  but  to  take  actual 
control  of  these  new  and  little  known  dominions.2  Such  a  com- 


2  Bancroft,  History  of  Central  America,  i,  280-282,  footnote. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  125 

mittee  or  council  was  legally  constituted  in  the  year  1524,  after 
many  years  of  experimenting  with  various  makeshifts. 

This  Council  of  the  Indies,  or  Consejo  de  Indias,  has  often 
been  compared  to  the  famous  Council  of  Castile  and  referred  to 
by  writers  as  a  kind  of  counterpart  in  American  affairs  of  the 
older  council  in  the  affairs  of  Castile,  but  such  a  comparison  is 
misleading.3  The  Council  of  the  Indies  had  considerably  greater 
authority  within  its  own  jurisdiction  than  any  of  the  councils  of 
Spain  proper  and  was  supreme,  not  only  in  civil  and  military 
affairs,  but  also  in  the  domain  of  the  church,  excepting,  of  course, 
questions  of  faith.  For  the  Kingdom  of  the  Indies,  which  in- 
cluded all  Spanish  America  and  the  Philippine  Islands,  it  had 
authority  to  legislate  on  every  subject  with  which  a  government 
could  be  concerned,  and  the  only  superior  power  was  the  king 
himself.  All  the  laws  in  force  in  the  colonies  were  not  only 
prepared  by  this  council  but  all  the  officers  of  any  importance, 
who  were  to  enforce  these  laws,  were  appointed  by  and  respon- 
sible to  this  same  council.  The  viceroys  themselves,  though  stand- 
ing in  a  position  of  peculiar  dignity  as  the  personal  represen- 
tatives of  the  king,  were  really  creatures  of  the  council  and  re- 
ported to  it  along  with  the  other  subordinate  officials.  The  pos- 
sibility of  always  appealing  from  the  council  to  the  king  as  a  last 
resort  was  finally  done  away  with  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
by  the  royal  decree  of  July  29,  1773,  the  decisions  of  the  council 
were  declared  final. 

Powerful  and  efficient  as  was  this  council,  its  eight  members 
made  it  too  large  and  unwieldly  actually  to  superintend  the  vice- 
roys and  the  other  officials  in  America,  and  in  consequence  the 
chief  mouthpiece  of  the  home  government  in  the  later  days  of 
Spanish  rule  came  to  be  the  minister  of  the  Indies.  It  is  im- 
possible in  the  space  allotted  here  even  to  attempt  an  explanation 
of  the  Spanish  cabinet  system  under  the  Bourbons,  but  from 
November,  1714,  till  well  into  the  nineteenth  century,  there  ex- 
isted a  ministry  of  the  Indies.4  It  was  usually  combined  with 


s  Desdevises  du  Dezert,  ii,  95-102,  132-133. 
*  Novisima  Recopilacion,  in,  vi,  4. 


126          University  of  California  Publications  in  History 

the  ministry  of  marine,  in  the  hands  of  one  person,  though  it  was 
subject  to  numerous  rearrangements  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth 
century.5  In  1787,6  toward  the  very  close  of  the  Galvez  regime, 
Charles  III  divided  the  portfolio  of  the  Indies  between  two  of- 
ficials, one  to  have  the  department  of  justice,  and  the  other  the 
departments  of  war  and  finance.  This  new  arrangement  had  been 
in  force  only  about  three  years  when  the  government  went  back 
to  the  old  basis,  but  the  minister  of  the  Indies,  whether  he  held 
one  or  two  cabinet  offices,  was,  throughout  the  period  here  treated, 
in  many  ways  the  direct  superior  of  the  viceroys  in  America. 

As  would  appear  from  what  has  been  said  above,  appointments 
were  made  to  the  viceregal  office  by  the  king  with  the  advice  of 
the  Council  of  the  Indies.  Such  appointments  were  among  the 
very  highest  at  the  disposal  of  the  king  and  were  exceeded  in 
honor  and  profit  by  only  a  few  positions  in  the  government  at 
Madrid.  From  the  very  first,  it  seems  to  have  been  a  determined 
policy  of  the  Spanish  rulers  to  appoint  only  grandees  and  persons 
of  the  highest  social  ranks  as  viceroys  in  the  new  world.  At  home 
it  was  the  policy  of  Charles  V  and  Philip  II  to  employ  occa- 
sionally secretaries  of  humble  birth  in  the  central  administration, 
but  only  the  great  nobles  were  appointed  to  high  commands  be- 
yond the  frontiers.  This  course  was  pursued  even  to  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.7  Perhaps  it  would  be  inconsistent 
with  Spanish  notions  of  honor  to  have  allowed  the  king  to  be 
represented  by  any  but  one  of  the  bluest  blood  and  of  high 
military  rank,  but  whatever  the  reason  may  have  been,  the  vice- 
roys of  New  Spain  and  of  Peru  were  in  the  main  aristocrats  and 
soldiers.  There  seemed  to  be  no  place  at  the  top  of  the  American 
administration  for  a  civil  official  who  had  begun  in  the  lower 
grades  and  had  worked  his  way  by  talent  alone  as  high  as  the 
audiencia. 


»  Kivera,  i,  pp.  75-80. 

*Novlsima  Becopilacidn,  in,  vi,  12-15. 

7  Of  all  the  viceroys,  one  only,  Casafuerte,  was  a  Creole  or  of  American 
birth.  Contrast  this  with  the  English  practice  in  North  America,  where 
four  of  the  ten  royal  governors  of  Massachusetts  were  colonists;  and  this 
was  typical. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  127 

Despite  certain  warnings  directed  against  a  viceroy's  assum- 
ing too  royal  a  style,  there  was  a  distinct  encouragement  of  a 
certain  magnificence  in  dress  and  public  deportment,  which 
might  be  regarded  as  becoming  a  representative  of  the  Spanish 
king.8  The  viceroy  was  expected  to  live  in  a  palace,  surround 
himself  with  a  bodyguard,9  be  received  in  his  capital  on  his 
first  arrival  with  considerable  pomp,  and  in  general  demand  for 
himself  such  an  outward  recognition  of  his  place  and  dignity  as 
would  properly  impress  the  king's  subjects. 

The  head  of  the  viceregal  government  was  appointed  for  a  / 
term  of  three  years,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  served  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  king  and  might  be  continued  in  office  indefinitely. 
There  were  never  cases  of  appointments  for  life  as  there  were 
occasionally  in  British  North  America,  but  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  ill-health  or  too  great  an  accumulation  of  responsi- 
bilities to  force  the  viceroy  to  resign.10  In  spite  of  the  unsur- 
passed climate  of  the  Mexican  plateau,  hygienic  conditions  were 
generally  bad.  The  pictures  which  Humboldt  has  given  us  of 
the  various  elements  which  were  unfavorable  to  public  health 
make  it  clear  that  though  New  Spain  was  no  India,  it  was  an 
excellent  place  for  an  overworked  viceroy,  past  middle  life,  to 
break  down.  The  elder  Kevilla  Gigedo  was  in  office  for  nine 
years,  1746  to  1755,  but  this  was  an  unusually  long  term,  and 
a  number  of  his  successors  served  only  for  a  year  or  two.  An 
average  term  for  the  eighteenth  century  would  not  be  more  than 


s  "  ....  representen  nuestra  real  persona,  hagan  y  administren 
justicia  igualmente  a  todos  nuestros  subditos  y  vasallos,  y  entiendan  en 
todo  lo  que  eonviene  al  sosiego,  quietud,  ennobleeimiento  y  pacificacion 
de  aquellas  provincias. "  Ley  I,  tit.  iii,  lib.  3,  Laws  of  the  Indies. 

•  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  533,  after  discussing  the  military  honors  due 
the  viceroy,  speaks  of  the  bodyguard  as  follows:  "La  compania  de  Ala- 
barderos  destinada  para  la  guardia  inmediata  de  los  Vireyes,  debe  con- 
siderarse  como  el  primer  cuerpo  de  este  Eeino,  asi  por  el  objeto  de  su 
institute,  como  por  su  antiguedad,  pues  fu6  formada  en  el  ano  de  1568, 
se  compone  un  Capitan,  un  Subteniente,  tres  Cabos  y  veinte  Alabarderos. ' ' 

10  In  spite  of  the  constant  rivalry  of  the  viceroy  and  the  audiencia, 
political  agitation  was  not  as  vigorous  in  Mexico  as  it  was  in  New  York 
or  Massachusetts,  and  it  was  not  possible  to  force  a  viceroy  out  of  office 
by  political  pressure  applied  in  the  colony. 


128          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [V°L- 1 

four  years.11  The  fact  that  most  of  the  viceroys  either  died  in 
office  or  retired  broken-down  or  discredited  men,  did  not  allow 
their  position  to  be  regarded  as  a  stepping-stone  to  higher  places 
at  home,  as  some  writers  have  implied.  The  colonial  official  who 
was  most  distinguished  by  his  sovereign  with  titles  and  promo- 
tion, Jose  de  Galvez,  was  never  viceroy  at  all,  and  so  can  scarcely 
be  taken  as  an  exception  to  the  rule  just  stated. 

The  salary  of  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  was  intended  to  be 
high  enough  to  raise  him  above  the  reach  of  the  ordinary  tempta- 
tions to  peculate,  and  the  general  tendency  was  for  salaries  to 
be  increased  with  the  progress  of  time.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
period  of  Spanish  rule  the  salary  of  the  viceroy  rose  to  sixty 
thousand  pesos  (perhaps  $60,000),  besides  a  number  of  per- 
quisites and  fees,  varying  with  the  royal  pleasure,  but  always  so 
considerable  in  amount  as  to  secure  to  the  holder  a  princely  in- 
come. It  can  never  be  known  how  much  this  income  from  salary 
and  fees  combined  was  increased  by  dishonest  officials  through 
illicit  means.  There  was  always  a  general  impression  current  that 
corrupt  practices  were  both  extensive  and  frequent.  The  law  was 
intended  to  prevent  all  indirect  profit  by  forbidding  nepotism 
and  the  sale  of  favors  of  all  kinds,  and  yet  it  cannot  be  believed 
that  it  always  succeeded.12  Humboldt  certainly  held  the  opinion 
that  many  of  the  viceroys  made  the  most  of  their  positions  in  a 


11  It  is  a  general  opinion  that  the  English  colonial  governors  had  a 
very  uncertain  tenure  of  office,  but  their  terms  were  long  compared  with 
those  of  the  Spanish  viceroys.    According  to  Greene,  The  Colonial  Governor, 
p.  51,  "Massachusetts,  during  the  eighty-two  years,  from  1692  to  1774, 
the  period  of  the  Province  charter,  had  ten  governors  with  an  average 
term  of  eight  years.     North  Carolina,  during  the  thirty-four  years  of 
the  royal  government  up  to  the  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act,  had   only 
three  governors  with  an  average  term  of  eleven  years. ' ' 

12  In  the  matter  of  salary,  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  was  incomparably 
better  off  than  the  English  colonial  governors,  and  the  annual  income 
of  Revilla  Gigedo  was  something  like  six  or  eight  times  as  great  as  that 
of  the  best  paid  of  the  governors  of  the  North  American  colonies.     The 
governor  of  Virginia,  just  before  the  revolution,  received  £2000  sterling, 
and  some  fees  besides,  but  in  the  other  colonies,  the  average  was  no 
higher  than  £1000  sterling.     Moreover,  in  all  but  four  of  our  American 
colonies  the  governors'   salaries  were  not   on   a   fixed  basis,  but   were 
dependent  on  the  good  will  of  the  assemblies.     Greene,  pp.  59-64. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  129 

financial  way,13  in  spite  of  all  the  safeguards  with  which  the 
home  government  sought  to  surround  their  office,  and  in  this 
opinion  many  of  the  most  intelligent  contemporaries  concurred.14 
However,  an  examination  of  the  means  employed  by  the  Spanish 
government  to  control  their  agents  in  America  shows  the  way  to 
an  understanding  of  the  means  actually  employed  in  the  efforts 
to  keep  the  viceroys  honest  and  efficient,  and  likewise  shows  to 
what  extent  these  measures  were  successful. 

The  control  which  the  home  government  exercised  over  the 
rulers  of  the  American  provinces,  whether  viceroys,  captains- 
general,  or  governors,  was  accomplished  in  a  great  variety  of 
ways.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  direct,  since  it  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  colonial  rulers  during  the  time  they  actually  held 
office,  and  on  the  other  hand  was  indirect,  in  that  penalties  were 
provided  for  offending  officers  when  they  had  concluded  their 
term  of  office.  The  direct  control  was  effected  by  means  of  orders 
and  despatches  in  the  form  of  royal  decrees  sent  to  the  viceroy 
from  the  Council  of  the  Indies  or  the  Minister  of  the  Indies  at 
Madrid.  This  was  also  supplemented  through  the  action  of  the 
co-ordinate  officials  in  Mexico,  who  could  act  independently  and 
even  in  opposition  to  the  viceroy  himself.  The  indirect  control, 
which  was  to  be  secured  by  the  punishing  of  a  corrupt  magis- 
trate at  the  close  of  his  term  of  office,  was  accomplished  through 
the  residencia,  referred  to  in  chapter  i.  A  brief  consideration  of 
these  three  features  of  the  viceroy's  relation  to  the  home  gov- 
ernment will  now  be  given  in  the  above  order. 

In  trying  to  decide  upon  the  nature  and  effectiveness  of  the 
direct  control  maintained  over  the  viceroy  by  the  Madrid  gov- 
ernment, the  investigator  is  puzzled  by  two  opposing  considera- 


is  Although  it  is  impossible  to  know  with  any  exactness  how  much 
was  stolen  directly  or  indirectly  by  the  Spanish  pro-consuls  of  New  Spain, 
it  may  be  interesting  to  cite  some  opinions.  Desdevises  du  Dezert,  ii, 
132  and  133,  following  Humboldt,  takes  a  very  pessimistic  view:  "There 
were  some  very  avaricious,  and  some  were  veritable  pillagers.  One  is  said 
to  have  stolen  eight  million  livres  in  a  few  years."  Bancroft,  Mexico, 
iii,  537-538,  shows  how  the  viceroys  could  add  to  their  fixed  income. 

i*  Allowing  for  considerable  corruption  under  the  Spanish  system,  it 
does  not  look-  so  bad  when  compared  with  what  went  on  under  the 
English  rule.  For  an  introduction  to  this  subject,  see  Greene,  pp.  46-48. 


130          University  of  California  Publications  in  History 

tions.  There  is  no  doubt  that  a  great  number  of  orders  and  in- 
structions, of  the  most  detailed  character,  were  sent  from  Spain 
to  Mexico  every  yeaj.  It  is  equally  certain  that  the  widest 
latitude  was  allowed  to  the  viceroys  in  the  matter  of  their 
obedience  to  these  instructions,  or  at  least  in  the  matter  of  decid- 
ing when  they  should  be  put  into  operation  and  how  they  should 
be  interpreted.  In  the  language  of  the  Laws  of  the  Indies,  the 
viceroys  were:16  "  ....  in  all  the  matters  and  business  that 
came  before  them  to  do  what  seemed  to  them  right,  and  carry 
out  everything  which  We  would  be  able  to  carry  out  and  per- 
form, of  whatever  quality  and  condition  it  may  be,  in  the  prov- 
inces under  their  rule,  and  they  are  to  govern  for  our  royal 
person,  in  all  things  where  there  is  not  a  special  prohibition." 
It  was  generally  conceded  that  a  viceroy  had  wide  discretion  in 
the  matter  of  enforcing  these  royal  orders  and  the  famous  saying, 
"I  obey  but  do  not  execute,"  (obedezco  pero  no  cumplo)  is 
always  remembered  as  one  of  the  characteristic  anomolies  of  the 
Spanish  colonial  administration.  While  it  is  difficult  to  decide 
at  times  which  was  the  more  likely  to  prevail,  the  detailed  and 
reiterated  commands  from  Spain  or  the  procrastinations  and 
evasions  of  the  vice-kings  in  America,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  by 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  tendency  was  all  in 
favor  of  the  former.16  The  establishment  of  a  regular  line  of 


15  "  ....  en  todas  las  cocas  y  negocios  que  se  ofreeieren,  hagan  lo 
que  les  parecieren  y  vieren  que  conviene,  y  provean  todo  aquello  que  Nos 
podriamos  hacer  proveer,  de  cualquiera  calidad  y  condicion  que  sea,  en  las 
provincias  de  su  cargo,  si  por  nuestra  persona  se  gobernaran,  en  lo  que  no 
tuvieren  especial  prohibici6n. " 

i«  Desdevises  du  Dezert,  ii,  126-138,  implies  throughout  that  the  vice- 
roys were  practically  free  from  anything  like  direct  control  on  the  part 
of  their  sovereigns,  and  in  one  place  (p.  127)  he  makes  this  strangely 
inaccurate  statement:  "The  great  viceroyalties  of  the  Indies  were  veri- 
table satrapies  on  the  oriental  order,  with  the  only  difference  that  the 
viceroys  were  never  kept  in  office  longer  than  six  years  at  most. ' '  There 
are  two  difficulties  with  this  statement  that  are  almost  too  obvious  to 
deserve  special  notice,  and  only  the  reputation  and  general  excellence  of 
Professor  Desdevises  du  DSzert  makes  such  notice  justifiable.  The 
American  viceroyalties  were  not  satrapies  except  for  purposes  of 
rhetoric;  and  six  years  was  not  the  superior  limit  of  the  viceroy's  tenure 
of  office.  In  the  latter  half  of  this  chapter  I  have  shown  by  a  large 
number  of  cases  taken  direct  from  the  correspondence  of  the  viceroys 
of  New  Spain  with  their  home  government,  to  what  an  astonishing  degree 
they  were  supervised  and  dictated  to  by  their  superiors  in  Spain. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  131 

packet-boats  between  Europe  and  America  and  the  general 
improvement  of  the  means  of  communication  between  Vera  Cruz 
and  Cadiz  in  regard  both  to  speed  and  safety,  combined  to 
increase  the  likelihood  of  the  crown's  wishes  being  carried  out. 
When  in  addition  to  this  there  was  occasionally  present  in  New 
Spain  a  visitor-general,  the  colonial  official  became  less  inde- 
pendent and  the  Council  of  the  Indies  better  assured  that  its 
decrees  were  being  obeyed. 

The  second  form  of  direct  control,  that  by  means  of  inde- 
pendent colleagues,  was  from  the  earliest  days  performed  by  the 
audiencia,  a  combination  of  supreme  court  and  governor's  coun- 
cil. The  Laws  of  the  Indies  prescribed  with  great  exactness  the 
organization,  honors,  fees,  exemptions,  and  jurisdiction  of  this 
exalted  body,  which  eventually  came  to  be  invested  with  sufficient 
powers  and  privileges  fairly  to  rival  the  viceroy.  The  first 
audiencia  in  the  New  World  was  that  of  San  Domingo,  created 
before  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  viceroy  in  America,  but  as 
an  institution  the  audiencia  became  most  interesting  when  it 
reached  its  highest  development  on  the  mainland  at  a  much 
later  date.  The  relation  of  the  audiencia  to  the  administration 
of  justice  will  be  treated  in  chapter  m,  but  in  this  connection 
it  is  viewed  solely  as  one  of  the  means  of  limiting  the  power  of 
the  viceroy  and  helping  the  king  to  keep  him  in  a  place  of 
proper  subordination. 

Though  the  Mexican  audiencia  was,  like  the  American 
provincial  legislature,  a  check  upon  the  colonial  governor,  it  must 
not  be  thought  of  as  a  legislative  body  in  any  proper  sense 
whatsoever.  From  the  time  of  its  establishment  in  New  Spain 
in  the  year  1528,  till  it  went  down  in  the  general  ruin  of  the 
Spanish  domination  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, it  had  been  a  judicial  and  advisory  body.17  Legislation, 
strictly  speaking,  did  not  exist  in  the  Spanish  colonies  at  all, 
and  all  laws  were  issued  in  the  name  of  the  king  by  the  Council 
of  the  Indies.  The  nearest  approach  to  lawmaking  in  New  Spain 
was  the  issuing  of  proclamations,  or  bandos,  by  the  viceroys. 


Moses,  Spanish  Rule  in  America,  chap,  iv,  passim. 


132          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

The  decisions  of  the  audiencia,  generally  known  as  autos 
acordados,  were  not  even  ordinances,  but  merely  court  decisions 
which  would  be  followed  as  precedents  by  the  other  courts  of  the 
viceroyalty  until  they  were  reversed.  This  power  of  rendering 
judicial  decisions  was  the  most  distinctive  government  char- 
acteristic of  the  audiencia  and  suggests  another  comparison  with 
English  colonial  institutions.  Among  the  English  colonies  in 
America  the  governor's  council  was  not  only  what  the  term 
indicates,  a  body  of  advisors  to  the  colonial  executive,  but  was 
in  addition  a  kind  of  court  of  appeals  and  upper  house  of  the 
legislature.18  The  Mexican  audiencia  was  primarily  a  supreme 
court  with  appellate  jurisdiction,  and  its  functions  as  an  advisory 
board  to  check  and  assist  the  governor  were  of  secondary  im- 
portance.19 Though  the  audiencia  might  communicate  inde- 
pendently with  the  government  in  Spain  and  might  express  its 
views  unhindered  in  regard  to  all  branches  of  the  administration, 
it  was  concerned,  in  the  main,  with  the  general  direction  of  the 
department  of  justice.20  "When  the  audiencia  was  acting  as  a 
council  of  state,  its  advice  was  not  obligatory  on  the  viceroy 
except  in  a  small  number  of  cases.  It  was  naturally  assumed, 
however,  that  the  chief  executive  took  upon  himself  a  rather 
serious  responsibility  when  he  acted  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his 
council.  If  he  followed  his  own  independent  course  he  might 
be  able  to  find  ample  means  for  justifying  it  before  the  Council 
of  the  Indies,  but  such  a  burden  of  proof  would  tend  to  discourage 
hasty  or  ill-considered  action. 

The  most  effective  way  at  the  disposal  of  the  crown  of  limit- 
ing the  power  of  the  viceroy  was  secured  through  the  office  of 
the  visitador-general.    Though  this  means  was  used  only  inter- 
is  Greene,  pp.  23-31  and  72-90. 

is  In  1755,  the  elder  Eevilla  Gigedo  in  his  instructions  to  his  succcessor 
declared  that  the  audience  of  Mexico  had  for  its  object:  "...  conocer 
de  todas  las  causas,  ya  sea  de  las  que  por  caso  de  corte,  privilegio  ti  otro 
motivo  se  radican  en  primera  instancia  6  ya  sea  de  las  que  suben  por 
apelacion  de  los  jueces  de  provincia  y  de  todos  los  ordinarios,  y  aun  del 
Virey  en  puntoa  de  justicia  contenciosos  entre  partes,  sin  mas  recurso  en 
las  que  determina,  que  el  de  la  segunda  suplicacion  al  Eeal  y  Supremo 
Consejo  de  las  Indias. ' '  Quoted  by  Eivera,  i,  81,  footnote. 
zoDesdevises  du  Desert,  ii,  149-151. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  133 

mittently  and  so,  unlike  the  audiencia,  did  not  bring  to  bear  a 
constant  pressure,  it  was  much  more  thoroughgoing  while  it 
lasted.  This  is  referred  to  in  chapter  i,  where  a  few  words  are 
devoted  to  the  mission  of  Jose  de  Galvez  and  his  reforms,  but  it 
must  be  alluded  to  again  in  this  connection.21  The  visitor- 
general  was  usually  given  the  fullest  possible  powers  and 
was  hampered  by  the  fewest  possible  restrictions.  As  his  work 
was  bound  to  conflict  more  or  less  with  that  of  the  regularly 
constituted  authorities  and  as  he  was  intended  and  expected  to 
criticize  and  investigate,  it  was  unavoidable  that  he  should 
create  antagonism  which  would  prevent  any  danger  of  his  abus- 
ing his  powers  in  the  direction  of  independence  from  the  mother 
country.  Though  he  owed  a  duty  to  the  Mexican  commonwealth 
like  any  other  officer  employed  there,  he  was  more  keenly  alive 
to  his  responsibilities  at  home,  whither  he  was  soon  to  return  and 
where  he  could  expect  the  only  reward  for  his  services.  It  was 
apparent  that  such  an  office  in  the  hands  of  a  strong  man  must 
lead  to  large  results  and  it  so  happened  that  the  most  important 
administrative  changes  in  Mexico  during  the  reign  of  Charles  III 
were  accomplished  by  the  visitor-general.  Subject  to  no  inter- 
ference from  an  audiencia  and  indifferent  to  public  opinion,  the 
visitor-general  had  a  tremendous  advantage  over  the  viceroy  and 
was  able  with  unfettered  hands  to  inaugurate  a  number  of 
changes  and  reforms  utterly  beyond  the  power  of  the  ablest  and 
most  honest  viceroy. 

In  some  ways  the  appointment  of  such  a  visitor-general  as 
Galvez  was  like  suspending  the  viceregal  office.  At  the  very 
least  it  caused  a  temporary  diminution  of  authority  in  that 
office,  which  showed  how  effective  an  agent  of  imperial  control 
the  visitor-general  might  be.  The  attitude  of  the  viceroys  was 
not  that  of  approbation,  and  the  following  quotation  from  a 
letter  of  Bucareli  to  his  brother  reflects  some  typical  contem- 
porary opinion.22  "No  one  can  deny  that  the  visitor-general  had 
worked  hard,  and  that  he  was  not  lacking  in  zeal  for  the  service, 


21  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  367-368. 

22  Desdevises  du  Dezert,  ii,  133,  footnote. 


134          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL. 

or  in  ability.    But  he  also  had  his  faults ;  his  friends  were  alv 
right,  his  adversaries  were  always  mistaken,  he  never  pardo 
an  injury,  and  often  in  seeking  a  way  to  get  even,  did  ham 
a  great  many  good  servants  of  the  king. ' '    After  the  first  irrecon- 
cilable  break  with   the   Viceroy   Cruillas,    things   went    rather 
smoothly,  because  the  succeeding  viceroys  gave  up  the  attempt 
to  maintain  an  opposition.     The  specific  reforms  introduced  by 
Galvez  will  be  the  subject  of  chapter  vi,  but  it  is  hoped  enough 
has  been  said  here  to  indicate  the  importance  of  the  visitor- 
general  as  an  instrument  of  the  crown  in  preventing  the  viceroys 
of  New  Spain  from  becoming  satraps  in  the  meaning  of  Des- 
devises  du  Dezert. 

The  great  indirect  check  on  the  viceroy  to  which  the  home 
government  had  recourse,  aside  from  actually  divesting  him  of 
his  office  before  the  normal  expiration  of  his  term,  was  the 
residential3  This  judicial  inquiry  into  the  various  acts  per- 
formed by  an  outgoing  official  was  not  limited  to  the  viceroy, 
but  was  applicable  to  any  of  the  higher  civil  officers.  It  had 
always  been  an  unpopular  institution,  and  by  the  time  of 
Charles  III  had  likewise  come  to  be  recognized  as  ill-adapted  to 
the  purposes  for  which  it  had  originally  been  designed.  It  was 
expensive  and  vexatious,  and  owing  to  the  possibility  of  collusion 
between  the  official  under  examination  and  those  who  were  his 
examiners,  had  fallen  into  general  discredit.  In  the  Noticias 
Secretas,24  there  is  an  interesting  and  almost  humorous  account 
of  the  way  residencias  were  conducted  in  Peru,  just  before  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Unless  the  viceroy  or  cor- 
regidor  had  offended  some  person  of  influence  or  antagonized 
some  powerful  interests,  he  was  practically  sure  of  a  vindication 
as  a  result  of  the  once  dreaded  residencia.  The  much-quoted 
statement  of  Humboldt  is  of  direct  interest  on  this  point.  "If 
the  viceroy  is  rich,"  he  said,  "adroit,  supported  in  America  by 
a  courageous  asesor  and  at  Madrid  by  powerful  friends,  he  can 


28  Bancroft,  History  of  Central  America,  i,  250-251  and  footnote. 
2*  Juan  y  Ulloa,  Noticias  Secretas,  p.  255  et  seq. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  135 

govern  arbitrarily  without  ever  fearing  the  residencies."25  It 
cannot  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  viceroys  themselves  were 
violently  prejudiced  against  so  costly  and  vexatious  a  proceed- 
ing, and  one  which  might  easily  be  made  the  means  of  petty 
persecutions  against  even  the  most  upright  official.  The  younger 
Revilla  Gigedo  expressly  condemned  the  residencia  as  it  was 
employed  in  New  Spain  against  the  intendants  as  well  as  the 
viceroys.  His  language  on  this  subject  was  as  follows:  "The 
residencias  have  been  considered  as  a  means  of  avoiding  dis- 
orders in  the  administration  of  justice,  as  a  restraint  upon  the 
judges;  but  experience  certainly  proves  how  little  progress  is 
made  by  this  means,  which  as  a  rule  is  the  more  burdensome  to 
the  good  servants  of  the  King,  as  it  obliges  them  to  go  to  an 
expense  which  they  cannot  support,  especially  in  the  case  of  the 
subdelegates,  for  whom  judges  of  the  residencies  are  appointed 
by  the  Council,  which  usually  leads  to  great  delays  and  throws 
obstacles  in  the  service  of  the  King."26  However,  when  the 
residencia  was  abolished  in  1799  so  far  as  subordinate  officials 
were  concerned,  it  was  retained  for  the  viceroys,  and  this  may 
be  taken  as  evidence  that  the  home  government  believed  in  the 
value  of  a  final  accounting  when  a  viceroy  surrendered  his  office. 
In  a  general  way  the  measures  have  been  made  clear  whereby 
the  mother  country  kept  a  restraining  hand  upon  the  chiefs  of 
the  distant  American  viceroy alties.  It  is  now  perhaps  in  order 
to  discuss  certain  relations  of  the  viceroy  to  the  king,  which  have 
a  bearing  upon  imperial  questions.  Obviously  there  was  a  great 
number  of  purely  local  matters  in  New  Spain  which  were  left 
almost  entirely  to  the  viceroy,  and  which  could  not  in  the  nature 


25  Humboldt,  Political  Essay  on  New  Spain,  ii,  244. 

26 ' '  Las  residencias  se  ban  considerado  como  un  medio  de  evitar 
desordenes  en  la  administracion  de  justicia,  conteniendo  a  los  Jueces; 
pero  lo  cierto  es  que  la  experiencia  acredita  cuan  poeo  se  adelanta  por 
este  medio,  mas  gravoso  por  lo  regular  en  los  buenos  servidores  del  Key, 
a  quienes  obliga  a  un  gasto  que  no  pueden  soportar,  especialmente  los 
subdelegados,  a  los  cuales  se  deben  nombrar  los  Jueces  de  residencia  por 
el  Consejo,  lo  que  suele  tambien  retardarse  y  quedar  impedidos  en  el 
servicio  del  Key."  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  140. 

"La  residencia  es  un  gravamen  de  la  mayor  consideracion  .  .  .  ." 
Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  864. 


136          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

of  things  be  understood  or  provided  for  even  by  the  most  zealous 
bureaucrat  in  Madrid.  There  were  at  the  other  extreme  many 
general  problems  touching  more  or  less  directly  the  interests  of 
Mexico,  which  nevertheless  had  to  be  regarded  as  of  such  peculiar 
concern  to  the  mother  country  that  the  viceroy  was  given  no 
part  in  determining  their  policy.  Between  these  extremes  there 
was  another  large  sphere  of  governmental  activity  in  which  the 
mother  country  was  interested  enough  to  interfere  occasionally, 
though  on  the  other  hand,  she  was  willing  to  listen  to  the 
viceroy 's  advice  and,  in  a  large  number  of  instances,  trust  to  his 
judgment.  The  first  and  last  of  these  categories  will  be  dis- 
cussed at  length  in  the  following  chapters,  but  the  second,  that 
relating  to  what  may  be  called  imperial  interests,  belongs  un- 
doubtedly here. 

One  of  the  most  immediate  of  all  imperial  concerns  was  that 
which  dealt  with  foreign  affairs  and  the  protection  of  the  colonies 
against  the  ambitions,  commercial  or  territorial,  of  rival  states. 
Complementary  to  this  was  the  necessity  of  advancing  the 
Spanish  frontiers  whenever  possible,  and  the  anticipating  of 
other  nations  in  the  conquering  and  exploiting  of  desirable  ter- 
ritory. In  the  nature  of  things,  a  European  nation  could  not 
rely  upon  its  colonial  governors  to  decide  such  questions,  but 
the  Spanish  viceroys  were  time  and  again  most  important  agents 
in  carrying  out  these  policies  and  furnishing  information  to  the 
Spanish  statesmen  in  Europe  as  to  ways  and  means  of  putting 
a  given  policy  into  operation. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Spaniards 
were  content  to  maintain  a  status  quo  on  the  continent  of  North 
America,  and  whatever  advances  were  made  in  the  way  of  terri- 
torial expansion  were  defensive  in  their  object.  In  two  famous 
instances,  territorial  acquisitions  were  forced  upon  Spain  by  the 
necessity,  real  or  fancied,  of  protecting  the  dominions  she  already 
possessed.  Louisiana  was  forced  upon  Spain  by  the  exigencies 
of  European  diplomacy,  and  was  acceptable  only  because  it  could 
not  be  allowed  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  hostile  power  like 
England,  not  because  of  its  intrinsic  worth.  Similar  considera- 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  137 

tions  also  forced  the  Spaniards  in  the  days  of  Viceroy  de  Croix 
to  forestall  the  Russians  in  the  possession  of  California.  In  all 
these  measures  New  Spain  was  the  necessary  base  of  operations 
and  the  Spanish  imperial  policy  found  in  the  viceroy  its  proper 
and  necessary  agent.  Much  of  the  time  of  Bucareli,  successor 
of  de  Croix,  was  taken  up  in  the  administration  of  the  frontier 
province  of  Upper  California,  a  matter  of  purely  imperial  in- 
terest.27 Without  multiplying  examples  any  further,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  viceroys  of  New  Spain,  like  the  English  viceroys 
of  India  at  the  present  day,  were  constantly  embarrassed  with 
questions  of  international  politics.  This  is  constantly  impressed 
upon  one  who  studies  the  primary  material  of  the  period,  though 
the  best  illustrations  are  to  be  found  in  the  instructions  which 
the  younger  Revilla  Gigedo  and  Branciforte  left  to  their 
successors. 

It  was  as  captain-general  that  the  viceroy  came  into  closest 
relation  to  Spain's  continental  projects.  As  the  military  and 
naval  representative  of  the  king,  he  was  called  upon  to  cooperate 
in  plans  of  imperial  defense  and  not  merely  devote  himself  to 
the  repelling  of  attacks  upon  New  Spain  proper.  He  might  be 
called  upon  at  any  time  to  send  aid  in  men  and  money  to  such 
neighboring  provinces  as  Louisiana,  the  Floridas,  or  any  of  the 
islands  of  the  Antilles.  Even  the  distant  Philippines  had  to  be 
provided  for  against  foreign  attack,  and  in  that  case  it  fell  to 
the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  to  supply  and  organize  the  necessary 


2?  The  vast  amount  of  manuscript  correspondence  between  Bucareli 
and  Neve,  in  the  California  provincial  archives,  indicates  something  of 
the  additional  responsibility  that  the  occupation  of  this  province  brought. 
"La  vecindad  de  los  rusos  podria  acaso  con  el  tiempo  sernos  mas  per- 
judicial  que  la  de  los  ingleses  u  otras  naciones  europeas,  cuyas  disposi- 
ciones  y  auxilios  debian  ser  mucho  mas  tardos  y  muy  difieil  que  nos 
perjudicasen.  Yo  he  sido  siempre  de  opinion,  y  he  propuesto  a  la  Corte, 
que  lo  conveniente  era  reducir  nuestros  limites  hasta  el  Estrecho  da  Juan 
de  Fuca,  que  parece  ser  un  termino  de  demarcacion  senalado  por  la  misma 
naturaleza:  y  seria  lo  mas  feliz  para  nuestra  nacion  el  que  quedase  un 
termino  que  a  nadie  perteneciese  y  que  contuviese  el  comercio  clandestine 
y  motives  de  disensiones,  que  es  lo  que  hay  mas  que  temer.  .  .  .  Revilla 
Gigedo,  art.  713. 

Though  the  viceroys  at  times  found  their  duties  greatly  increased, 
through  the  government  of  the  Provincias  Internas,  they  were  anxious  to 
retain  their  full  authority  over  them.  Branciforte  to  Paz,  August  29, 
1796. 


138          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

supplies,  ships,  and  men.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the 
creation  of  the  new  viceroyalty  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  in  1777,28 
was  the  protection  of  that  part  of  the  Spanish  dominions  against 
the  Portuguese  who  were  pressing  southward  from  Brazil.  It 
was  not  at  all  unusual  for  the  home  government  to  direct  even 
in  great  detail  all  of  these  expeditions,  but  in  every  case  the 
viceroy  was  the  pivot  upon  which  everything  turned.  These 
military  operations  often  necessitated  the  cooperation  of  con- 
tiguous, independent  provinces,  but  when  this  occurred  the 
viceroys  still  constituted  the  main  part  of  the  machinery  by 
which  affairs  were  managed.  In  many  ways,  the  best  illustrations 
for  the  above  statements  are  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  the 
La  Plata  country  where  the  viceroy  was  not  only  vis-a-vis  to  the 
hostile  Portuguese  establishment,  but  had  in  addition  a  special 
difficulty  with  the  English  over  the  Falkland  Islands.29 

The  policy  pursued  by  the  Spanish  government  toward  the 
native  races  is  one  of  the  best  known  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
interesting  features  of  its  rule  in  America,  and  it  was  in  this 
connection  that  the  viceroy  had  the  most  difficult  task  as  the 
intermediary  between  the  king  and  his  Indian  subjects.  In  these 
matters  the  home  government  seemed  to  prescribe  everything, 
but  held  the  viceroys  responsible  for  everything.  From  the  very 
first,  it  had  been  recognized  in  Spain  that  paternal  legislation, 
throwing  various  safeguards  around  the  aborigines,  was  not 
adequate  for  their  protection.  In  order  that  the  natives  might 
not  be  abused  by  leaving  the  enforcement  of  these  laws  in  the 
hands  of  the  regular  officials,  whose  interests  rarely  coincided 
with  philanthropic  intentions  in  Madrid,  a  body  of  special  officers 
called  corregidores  was  sent  out  to  look  after  the  Indians.  These 


28  This  date  has  been  somewhat  in  dispute,  but  the  real  cedula  grant- 
ing the  commission  as  viceroy  to  Cevallos,  bears  the  date  of  August  1, 
1777.  See  Quesada,  Vireinato  del  Eio  de  la  Plata,  p.  115. 

z»  The  royal  order  of  June  26,  1780,  directed  to  Viceroy  Vertiz,  is  a 
good  document  to  illustrate  not  only  Spanish  policy  in  South  America,  but 
the  relationship  between  a  viceroy  and  the  crown.  It  contains  instruc- 
tions to  Vertiz  regarding  the  conduct  he  should  pursue  in  regard  to  the 
Falkland  Islands,  warning  him  of  the  designs  of  the  Court  of  St.  James 
upon  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  the  South  Atlantic  coast  of  South 
America.  Printed  in  Quesada,  pp.  168-169. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  139 

corregidores  became  in  effect  Indian  commissioners,  while  the 
viceroys  to  whom  they  were  responsible  were  in  a  position  similar 
to  that  of  the  royal  superintendent  of  Indian  affairs  in  British 
North  America.30  The  Indians  were  politically  entirely  subordin- 
ate to  the  king's  representative,  though  their  caciques  were  recog- 
nized. However,  there  was  no  place  in  the  Spanish  system  for  any 
great  native  states  such  as  had  been  allowed  to  survive  and  still 
exist  in  British  India.31  On  the  other  hand,  the  viceroys  were 
especially  enjoined  to  protect  the  natives  from  forced  labor  and 
other  forms  of  economic  serviture.  Whatever  evasions  of  these 
laws  occurred,  there  did  not  develop  anything  approaching  the 
rigid  and  oppressive  agricultural  system  that  grew  up  under 
the  Dutch  in  Java.  The  viceroys  of  New  Spain  had  no  oppor- 
tunity of  formulating,  still  less  of  putting  into  effect,  any  policy 
of  their  own  dealing  with  the  Indians.  The  policy  of  keeping 
the  Europeans  and  the  natives  apart  had  been  adopted  early  by 
the  Spaniard  and  had  been  persevered  in  to  the  very  last,  so  that 
in  this  matter  also  the  viceroys  were  left  no  discretion  and  were 
powerless  to  alter  these  traditions  of  government.  The  natives 
were  made  to  pay  their  share  in  the  financial  support  of  the  real 
hacienda  by  a  special  tax  called  the  tributo.  The  assessment  and 
collection  of  this  tax  was  watched  over  most  carefully  by  the 
Council  of  the  Indies,  as  it  was  evidently  felt  that  if  such  matters 
were  left  to  the  colonial  officials  there  would  be  special  danger  of 
corruption  and  abuse.  The  absence  of  semi-independent  states  as 
in  British  India,  and  the  desire  of  the  Spanish  kings  to  avoid  the 
half-servile  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  period  just  after 
the  conquest  and  which  became  a  regular  characteristic  of  the 
Dutch  rule  in  Java,  left  no  alternative  but  a  land  or  capitation 


30  It  is  interesting  to  point  out  that  the  royal  superintendent  of  Indian 
affairs  was  one  of  the  extraordinary  members,  so  called,  of  the  governor 's 
council  in  the  English  colonies.  Greene,  p.  78.  There  was  a  general 
tendency  to  abridge  the  power  of  the  governor  by  the  assembly,  so  that 
by  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  Indian  affairs  were  managed  either  by 
royal  agents  directly,  or  by  committees  of  the  assemblies. 

si  The  absence  of  large  native  states  relieved  the  viceroy  of  anything 
like  diplomatic  duties  and  prevented  the  natives  having  in  their  posses- 
sion a  nucleus  for  a  possible  revolt. 


140  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

tax.32  The  latter  was  adopted  as  affording  a  system  which  caused 
a  maximum  of  revenue  with  a  minimum  of  commingling  of 
Europeans  and  natives.  The  idea  of  keeping  the  white  man  and 
the  native  apart  was  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Spanish 
method  of  protecting  the  latter.  It  never  seemed  to  be  an  object 
with  the  crown  to  build  up  in  America  a  great  Spanish  com- 
munity with  as  much  Spanish  blood  and  as  little  adulteration 
as  possible.  On  the  contrary,  no  pains  were  spared  to  make 
immigration  from  the  peninsula  extremely  difficult.  It  seemed 
as  if  it  were  the  desire  of  the  king  to  limit  the  white  population 
in  America  to  the  comparatively  few  persons  needed  to  carry 
on  the  government,  to  defend  the  country  against  foreign  in- 
vasion, and  direct  the  exploitation  of  the  mines. 

As  a  part  of  its  policy  toward  the  native  races,  though  at 
first  seeming  to  have  no  bearing  upon  it,  the  African  slave  trade 
must  be  considered.33  One  reason  why  the  Spaniards  were  able 
to  avoid  either  the  enslavement  of  the  Indians  or  their  subjection 
to  a  forced  culture  system  and  yet  secure  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity of  fairly  efficient  labor,  was  the  establishment  of  negro 
slavery.  New  Spain  was  not  a  densely  settled  country  where 
population  was  likely  to  outrun  food  supply,  so  that  recourse 
might  easily  be  had,  as  the  conditions  of  the  labor  market  seemed 
to  justify,  to  bringing  in  laborers  from  abroad.  Originally, 
however,  the  African  slave  trade  was  turned  in  the  direction 
of  America  as  the  only  possible  means  of  saving  the  Indians 
from  extermination.  In  carrying  out  this  policy,  which  was 


32  The  two  books  which  best  enable  the  English  reader  to  understand 
the  two  most  interesting  parallel  colonial  administrations,  are  General  Sir 
George  Chesney,  Indian  Polity,  and  Clive  Day,  Policy  and  Administration 
of  the  Dutch  in  Java.    Chapter  7  of  Mr.  Day's  book  gives  a  clear  outline 
of  the  culture  system  as  it  worked  in  Java,  while  chaps.  8  and  9  show 
the  political  features   of  the  administration  and  the  final  reforms.     The 
worst  side  of  the  Spanish  system  is  of  course  found  in  the  Noticias  Secretas, 
passim. 

33  The  general  question  of  negro  slavery  in  Spanish  America  and  its 
effect  upon  the  native  races  has  been  discussed  in  the  general  works  of 
Saco  and  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  but  its  diplomatic  and  international  aspects 
have  only  recently  (1906)  been  treated  by  G.  Scelle.     The  policy  of  the 
home  government  in  regard  to  the  slave  trade  is  here  treated  very  fully, 
and  the  ' '  asiento  treaty, ' '  or  provision  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  is  shown 
in  its  proper  relations  for  the  first  time. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  141 

inaugurated  back  in  the  days  of  Las  Casas,  the  viceroys  of 
Mexico  had  a  comparatively  small  part.  The  slave  trade  was 
strictly  regulated  from  Madrid,  either  by  treaty  with  a  foreign 
nation,  as  with  England  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  or  by  char- 
tered companies,  as  was  done  for  a  while  after  the  famous  asiento 
had  ceased  to  be  in  effect.  In  such  matters,  then,  the  viceroy 
could  do  little  more  than  execute  the  orders  sent  him,  like 
any  subordinate  official.  He  was  expected  to  make  provision  for 
the  receiving  and  distributing  of  the  slaves  and  for  enforcing  the 
laws  protecting  them  and  regulating  the  institution  of  chattel 
slavery. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  about  the  viceroy  of  New 
Spain  was  his  relation  to  the  Mexican  civil  service.  The  interest, 
however,  is  quite  as  keen  with  regard  to  what  he  did  not  do  as 
to  what  he  actually  did.  In  one  sense,  there  was  no  permanent 
civil  service  in  Mexico  where  a  man  might  begin  in  the  lower 
ranks  and  have  a  reasonable  hope  of  promotion  to  a  place  near 
the  top,  as  the  result  of  long  and  faithful  service.  All  the 
important  offices,  civil,  military,  and  ecclesiastical,  were  filled  by 
appointees  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies  and  confirmed  by  the 
king.  The  few  exceptions  were  some  minor  positions  filled  by 
the  viceroy,  such  as  a  number  of  the  alcaldes  mayores,  and  a  few  f 
municipal  offices  which  were  elective.  A  rather  large  number  of 
clerical  positions  and  commissions  in  the  militia  were  also 
saleable,  being  sold  at  auction  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  Further- 
more, it  was  a  general  rule  to  give  preference  whenever  possible 
to  the  descendants  of  the  early  conquerors.  The  ad  interim 
appointments  which  the  viceroy  might  make  were  numerous,  but 
even  these  were  hedged  about  with  innumerable  restrictions  to 
prevent  favoritism.34  His  real  influence  in  determining  the 
personnel  of  his  large  official  family  could  be  exerted  only  by 
recommendations  to  Madrid,  and  the  weight  of  these  recommen- 
dations varied  with  the  influence  and  personality  of  the  viceroy 


Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  chap.  27,  517-551. 


142          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

as  well  as  with  the  character  of  the  persons  who  dominated  the 
king  at  home.35 

In  order  to  obtain  a  definite  idea  of  the  real  extent  of  the 
dependence  of  the  viceroy  on  the  home  government,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  exhibit  in  some  detail  the  correspondence  between  them ; 
to  study  certain  cases  in  which  the  Council  of  the  Indies 
insisted  upon  having  its  own  way ;  and  to  discover  the  manner  in 
which  such  cases  were  actually  decided.  The  treatment  of  this 
aspect  of  the  Spanish  colonial  system  in  the  following  pages  is 
by  no  means  exhaustive,  but  the  typical  cases  presented  will 
show,  it  is  believed,  the  trend  of  the  policy  in  this  regard  and 
make  clear  the  nature  of  the  control  which  Charles  III  retained 
over  his  most  important  agent  in  the  New  World.  The  point  of 
view  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies  can  be  observed  by  an  examina- 
tion of  the  cedulas  and  other  communications  sent  to  the  viceroys. 
The  opinions  of  the  latter  regarding  these  same  cedulas  is  to  be 
found  mainly  in  the  instrucciones  which  they  left  to  their  suc- 
cessors.36 These  instructions,  written  by  the  viceroys  for  the 
information  of  those  sent  out  to  take  their  places,  are  especially 
valuable  because  they  go  further  than  a  mere  statement  of  the 
law,  and  explain,  with  varying  degrees  of  elaboration,  how  the 
laws  worked  and  in  what  ways  they  were  good  or  bad  in  their 
operations.  The  specific  questions,  then,  which  will  be  taken 
up  in  the  following  pages  are  those  which  are  found  discussed  in 
the  viceregal  instrucciones  and  are  therefore  presumably  matters 
of  more  than  ordinary  concern  to  the  viceroys  and  to  the  Spanish 
government.  They  are  taken  principally  from  the  instruccion 
reservada  of  Eevilla  Gigedo,  the  younger. 


as  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  2,  complains  of  the  viceroy 's  inability  in  this 
regard.  The  viceroy  could  not,  he  said,  ' '  grant  any  distinction,  and  thus 
has  no  other  means  of  granting  rewards  and  favors,  than  of  making 
recommendations  of  them  to  the  sovereign."  Further  on  he  adds,  "the 
Viceroy  should  have  more  choice  in  the  matter  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, in  order  that  he  might  make  himself  obeyed  and  respected  as  is 
desirable. ' ' 

se  This  writing  of  an  instrucci6n  had  been  made  obligatory  by  the 
Laws  of  the  Indies,  and  reenforced  by  royal  order  of  August  23,  1751. 
The  import  of  these  laws  is  thus  given  by  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  2:  "By 
the  two  royal  orders  the  viceroy  is  commanded,  on  finishing  his  term,  to 
instruct  his  successor  regarding  the  most  essential  things  which  have 
taken  place  during  his  rule,  concerning  what  he  had  done  and  what 
remained  to  be  done,  giving  his  opinion  on  all  of  these  points." 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  143 

The  first  illustration  of  the  method  of  settling  questions  of 
state  between  the  viceroys  and  the  home  government  is  the  very 
important  dispute  as  to  who  was  to  govern  the  viceroyalty  during 
the  interregnum  between  the  death  of  one  viceroy  and  the  arrival 
of  his  successor.  It  had  always  been  the  law  that  the  government 
at  such  a  time  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  audiencia,  at  any 
rate  in  cases  wherein  no  special  provision  had  been  made  by  the 
king  for  the  chief  command  to  be  assumed  by  some  one  designated 
in  a  pliego  de  providencia,  or  sealed  commission.  These  provisions 
seemed  clear  enough,  but  they  had  not  succeeded  in  eliminating 
unseemly  dissensions  on  the  death  of  the  ruler  of  New  Spain,  so 
that  a  special  order,  March  8,  1785,  was  thought  necessary.  Ac- 
cording to  this  order  there  should  henceforth  always  be  a  pliego 
de  providencia,  but  if  by  any  unforeseen  accident  one  should  be 
wanting,  the  command  of  the  troops  should  be  exercised  by  the 
civil  authorities,  in  this  case  the  audiencia*7  This  arrangement 
seemed  unwise  to  the  younger  Revilla  Gigedo,  and  accordingly 
he  submitted  his  views  to  the  two  ministers  of  the  Indies,  January 
8,  1790,  stating  that  the  audiencia  was  not  a  proper  institution 
to  possess  the  military  command  and  that  its  administration 
"would  be  exercised  with  much  less  exactitude  and  inlj^Jligence. " 
He  did  not  think  that  the  audiencia  could  understand  the  evils 
that  might  result  from  such  an  interference  in  military  affairs 
by  a  civilian,  and  that  the  utmost  confusion  might  be  brought  into 
the  military  government  of  the  realm.38  Revilla  Gigedo  sug- 
gested further  that  some  military  officer  should  be  given  the 
duties  of  captain-general  at  such  a  time,39  and  that  a  short  period 
it  would  not  be  only  safe  but  in  every  way  highly  desirable  that 
the  civil  and  military  functions  be  kept  separate,  as  was  so  often 
done  in  Spain.40  After  this  representation  had  been  sent  to  the 


3?  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  516:  "  ....  prevenia  que  para  evitar  disputas 
en  adelante  sobre  sueesion  al  mando,  se  tuviesen  siempre  anticipados 
pliegos  de  providencia,  y  que  cuando  en  un  imprevisto  accidente  no  los 
hubiese,  mandase  lasJfcmas  el  mismo  que  debia  mandar  el  Eeino. " 

ss  Eevilla  Gigedo,  all.  517. 

s»  Ibid.,  art.  518. 

40  Ibid.,  art.  519. 


144          University  of  California  Publications  in  History 

king,  Revilla  Gigedo  received  a  royal  cedula,  dated  the  second  of 
the  preceding  August,  dealing  with  this  same  matter  of  the  suc- 
cession, but  leaving  it  substantially  on  the  same  footing  as  it  had 
been  before.  Unconvinced  by  this  second  cedula,  the  viceroy 
wrote  an  additional  memorandum  to  the  crown,  setting  forth  the 
extreme  disadvantage  of  allowing  a  body  of  aged  lawyers  and 
ecclesiastics  to  have  charge  of  so  large  a  military  force  as  that 
of  New  Spain.41  Receiving  no  answer  to  these  representations, 
he  sent  still  another,  June  29,  1793,  stating  that  no  .response  had 
been  received,  but  as  no  reply  came  within  the  next  year,  the 
matter  was  regarded  as  settled  and  on  the  old  basis.42 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  brief  statement  of  facts  that  the 
viceroys  felt  free  to  state  their  views  with  great  frankness,  even 
when  they  seemed  to  be  in  direct  opposition  to  the  will  of  the 
sovereign,  or  of  those  who  were  intrusted  by  him  with  the 
chief  offices  of  state.  This  incident  also  shows  how  the  most 
insistent  statement  of  the  views  of  a  viceroy  could  be  pigeon-holed 
and  not  even  given  the  outward  consideration  of  an  answer. 
Furthermore,  the  length  of  time  consumed  in  correspondence  of 
such  importance  as  that  just  considered  made  quick  decisions 
impossible  and  explained  a  great  deal  of  the  dilatoriness  every- 
where observable  in  the  Spanish  administration.  From  the  time 
of  the  first  communication  of  Revilla  Gigedo,  January,  1790,  till 
the  last  one  of  June,  1793,  over  three  years  were  taken  up  in  the 
exchange  of  views,  and  this  proceeding  was  not  exceptionally 
slow.  If  a  viceroy  remained  in  office  on  an  average  of  five  years, 
it  is  evident  that  not  a  great  deal  could  be  accomplished  where 
much  correspondence  with  Madrid  was  necessary. 

That  the  king  of  Spain  did  not  hand  over  full  powers  in  all 
things  military  to  his  captains-general  and  simply  judge  them 


*i  Kevilla  Gigedo,  art.  521.  He  did  not  think  that  the  mando  militar  could 
be  well  administered,  "por  los  decanos  y  regentes,  asi  porque  sus  conoci- 
mientos  y  carrera  eran  distintos,  como  porque  la  avanzada  edad  y  achaques 
con  se  hallaban  por  lo  regular  los  sujetos  que  obtienen  estos  empleos  en 
todas  las  Audiencias  de  Mexico  no  les  permitiria  atender  al  mando 
vastisimo  de  las  armas,  particularmente  en  este  Reino  en  que  habia  un 
eje'rcito  de  alguna  consideracion. ' ' 

« /bid.,  art.  522. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  145 

by  results,  is  evidenced  by  the  interference  in  the  following  mat- 
ters of  minor  importance.  November  30,  1789,  Revilla  Gigedo 
proposed  the  formation  of  an  additional  company  of  artillery,  to 
use  a  Spanish  phrase,  and  showed  the  evils  of  having  the  only  ar- 
tillerymen of  New  Spain  kept  in  garrison  at  the  fortified  ports  of 
Acapulco  and  Vera  Cruz.43  It  was  desired  to  have  an  extra  com- 
pany available  for  miscellaneous  duties,  wherever  and  whenever 
the  occasion  for  their  use  might  arise.  This  proposal  of  the 
viceroy  was  approved  by  the  royal  order  of  August  3,  1790,  and 
by  February  1,  1791,  the  levy  was  completed  and  the  first  review 
held.  By  the  royal  order  of  March  23,  1792,  the  company  was 
ordered  to  continue  on  the  same  footing  as  that  upon  which  it  was 
formed ;  but  when  the  viceroy  asked,  in  a  letter  of  July  30,  1792, 
that  the  company  be  stationed  in  the  City  of  Mexico,  there  was 
no  reply  forthcoming.  This  seems  a  lame  and  impotent  conclu- 
sion after  such  an  exchange  of  despatches,  but  it  shows  the  glar- 
ing inefficiency  of  the  Madrid  government  in  the  days  of  Godoy. 
About  the  same  time  Revilla  Gigedo  reduced  the  pay  of  a 
company  of  one  hundred  and  five  men,  eight  reales  a  month, 
with  the  object  of  making  uniform  the  pay  of  all  men  of  equal 
length  of  service.44  The  king  on  being  informed  of  this  refused 
to  approve  such  a  diminution  in  pay.45  The  sub-inspector-general 
of  New  Spain  thereupon  prepared  a  report,  supporting  the  vice- 
roy's action  and  the  latter  again  submitted  the  whole  matter  to 
the  king,  pointing  out  what  grave  inconveniences  would  result 
if  the  pay  were  not  reduced.  The  desired  consent  of  the  crown 
was  finally  obtained,  August  7,  1792.  Again  and  again  the  vice- 
roy is  found  referring  similar  questions  of  detail  to  the  home 
government  for  decision,  and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  a  ten- 
dency to  leave  such  matters  more  and  more  to  the  colonial  author- 
ities.46 The  fortifications  of  Vera  Cruz  were  equipped  with  both 
iron  and  brass  cannon,  and  Revilla  Gigedo  reported  to  Madrid 
that,  on  account  of  climatic  conditions,  iron  deteriorated  very 


43  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  545  and  546. 
**  Ibid.,  art.  555. 
«76id.,  art.  556. 
*«76td.,  art.  559. 


146          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL. 1 

rapidly  so  that  in  such  places  only  brass  ordonnance  should  be 
used.47  Accordingly,  the  royal  order  of  April  16,  1792,  brought 
the  reply,  not  as  one  would  expect,  authorizing  the  viceroy  to  use 
his  judgment  in  the  whole  matter,  but  instead  telling  him  with 
great  care  to  see  that  the  guns  made  of  iron  be  covered  up  and 
protected  from  the  elements,  and  wait  for  a  favorable  turn  of 
circumstances  to  substitute  the  brass  variety  altogether.48 

In  matters  of  dispute  between  Spain  and  the  neighboring 
provinces  it  was  a  very  natural  thing  to  appeal  to  the  common 
master  in  Europe ;  so  there  can  be  no  surprise  over  the  interfer- 
ence by  the  home  government  in  the  controversy  between  Mexico 
and  the  various  West  India  Islands  over  the  question  of  the 
situados.  In  the  latter  years  of  the  reign  of  Charles  III,  the 
subsidies  paid  by  Mexico  to  the  neighboring  provinces  around 
the  Gulf  and  the  Carribean  took  up  a  large  part  of  her  surplus 
revenues,  and  the  viceroys  demanded  that  an  accounting  for  these 
sums  should  be  made  to  the  Mexican  treasury.  After  some  mis- 
understanding and  delays,  a  royal  order  of  the  year  1784  was 
sent  to  the  governors  of  Porto  Eico  and  San  Domingo,  and  to 
the  intendants  of  Havana  and  Louisiana,  commanding  them  to 
make  a  formal  and  detailed  report  to  Mexico  of  what  they  had 
done  with  these  subsidies.  This  order  further  authorized  a  stop- 
page of  payment  in  any  given  year  if  the  report  of  the  preceding 
year  were  not  received.  This  was  clearly  a  decision  in  favor  of 
Mexico,  and  Eevilla  Gigedo  welcomed  it  as  a  means  of  diminishing 
this  regular  demand  on  the  treasury  of  his  viceroyalty.  He  stated 
to  his  successor,  Branciforte,  that  it  would  be  better  to  apply  this 
money  to  internal  improvements  within  their  own  jurisdiction,  or 
even  increase  their  remittances  to  Spain,  than  to  go  on  sending 
such  large  sums  to  the  islands.49 


47  Kevilla  Gigedo,  art.  697. 

« Ibid..,  "Becibi  contestao  n  <n  Real  Orden  de  Abril  de  92,  pre- 
vinie'ndome  S.  M.  que  conservase  la  artilleria  de  fierro  que  habia  en  aquel 
puerto,  procurrando  tenerla  embreada  y  precavida  en  el  mejor  modo, 
interin  se  podia  reemplazar  en  el  todo  6  en  parte,  segun  lo  permitiesen  las 
circunstancias  y  urgencias  de  otras  plazas." 

«8  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  796. 


1913J  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  147 

The  reforming  spirit  which  was  so  strong  in  Spain  during 
the  reign  of  Charles  III,  attacking  every  conceivable  abuse  and 
seeking  out  every  possible  means  for  industrial  and  economic 
reforms,  could  not  be  indifferent  to  similar  projects  in  the 
colonies.  The  same  motives  that  led  Olavide  to  attempt  the  re- 
peopling  of  the  Sierra  Morena  with  Swiss  and  Bavarians,  induced 
the  sending  of  Saxon  miners  to  improve  the  methods  of  working 
the  Mexican  mines.  Humboldt  and  Bancroft  have  shown  the 
value  of  the  mines  of  New  Spain  as  a  source  of  revenue  and  have 
discussed  the  subject  in  all  its  economic  aspects,  but  the  best  of 
the  secondary  historians  have  failed  to  realize  the  connection  be- 
tween these  reforms  in  Mexico  and  their  originals  in  Spain.  The 
royal  order,  dated  January  1,  1791,  called  for  information  re- 
garding the  progress  of  these  German  workmen  and  the  results 
that  might  be  expected  of  them  for  the  mining  industry.50  There 
may  have  been  evil  effects  from  this  excessive  descending  into 
the  minutiae  of  provincial  administration  on  the  part  of  the 
crown,  but  if  it  was  despotism  it  was  at  least  benevolent  and 
identical  with  what  Frederick  of  Prussia,  Joseph  of  Austria,  and 
Charles  of  Spain  were  doing  in  Europe. 

This  interest  which  was  exemplified  in  the  case  of  the  German 
miners  attached  itself  to  all  sorts  of  schemes  for  industrial  im- 
provement, and  the  correspondence  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies 
with  the  viceroys  is  filled  with  inquiries  regarding  progress  and 
with  further  directions  for  new  improvements  in  all  manner  of 
things.  For  instance,  the  cultivation  of  hemp,  flax,  and  silk 
was  supposed  to  be  peculiarly  suitable  for  Mexico.  Not  only  wer x 
they  never  likely  to  be  grown  in  such  abundance  as  to  compete 
seriously  with  the  same  industries  in  Spain,  but  they  could  be 
grown  with  advantage  to  all  concerned  in  the  colony.  Ordenes 
Reales  of  April  19  and  October  24,  1^77,  directed  Viceroy  Buca- 
reli  to  "promote  with  efficacy  the  cultivation  of  hemp  and  flax, 


soEevilla  Gigedo,  art.  489-490,  "For  Keal  Orden  de  21  de  Enero  de 
1791,  se  mando  informar  sobre  lo  que  habian  hecho  j  progresado  los 
mineros  alemanes  y  la  utilidad  que  se  podria  esperar  de  ellos  en  estos 
Reinos.  .  .  .  Oyose  tambien  al  Tribunal  de  mineria,  y  por  fin  se  decidid 
el  asunto  en  Junta  Superior  de  4  de  Junio  de  93. ' ' 


148          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

and  to  this  effect  intelligent  laborers  from  Spain  would  be  sent 
over,  and  also  teachers  to  instruct  the  natives.51  As  the  first 
measures  were  not  altogether  successful,  another  real  orden, 
March  10, 1780,  was  sent  out  to  stimulate  the  work.52  The  natives 
evidently  had  a  repugnance  to  the  sowing  of  flax;  so  it  was 
thought  necessary  to  help  the  flagging  industry  by  another  order, 
April  12,  1792.  Revilla  Gigedo  pointed  out  the  difficulties  of 
trying  to  make  anything  of  this  crop,  which  was  exposed  to  the 
competition  of  others  that  were  not  only  adapted  to  the  coun- 
try, but  with  the  cultivation  of  which  the  natives  were  familiar. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Madrid,  however,  this  was  not  a  mat- 
ter for  viceregal  direction,  and  the  work  had  to  go  on  as  one  of 
those  reforms  forced  upon  the  colony  against  its  will  by  com- 
pulsion from  Europe.53 

If  the  home  government  felt  the  desire  to  correspond  with  the 
viceroys  on  such  points  as  the  particular  method  of  extracting 
ores,  examine  all  the  evidence  there  was  available,  and  prescribe 
rules  for  the  carrying  on  of  the  process  finally  approved,  it  would 
of  course  feel  bound  to  interfere  even  more  minutely,  if  possible, 
in  some  of  the  other  great  branches  of  industry.  If  the  govern- 
ment at  Madrid  had  the  time  and  patience  to  decide  disputes 
regarding  the  use  of  cemeteries  and  the  rights  of  sepulture,54  as 
in  the  celebrated  case  at  Vera  Cruz,  settled  by  the  real  cedula  of 
October  9,  1792,  it  surely  would  find  itself  bound  to  regulate  such 
a  great  business  as  the  tobacco  monopoly,  and  interfere  in  the 
construction  of  public  works.  As  there  was  nothing  in  New  Spain 
within  the  field  of  governmental  activities  free  from  royal  caprice 
and  the  possibility  of  active  interference,  it  must  not  be  a  mat- 
ter of  surprise  to  find  the  hands  of  the  viceroy  tied  even  in  the 
most  minute  point  of  local  administrative  detail. 


si  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  391. 

82  Ibid.,  art.  392.  At  this  time  the  authorities  in  Spain  seemed  anxious 
not  only  to  see  Mexico  produce  these  raw  materials,  but  also  to  see 
extensive  factories  established  for  the  coarser  textiles. 

68  Ibid.,  art.  393.    It  seems  that  the  success  of  these  first  manufactures 
was  due  to  the  accident  of  war,  which  cut  off  the  supply  from  Europe, 
art.  213. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy 'of  New  Spain  149 

The  various  regulations  regarding  what  might  be  manufac- 
tured and  sold  in  the  English  North  American  colonies  seem 
unnecessarily  harsh;  nevertheless  they  were  mild  compared  to 
those  put  in  force  by  the  Spanish  government  during  the  same 
period.  The  problem  which  the  Spaniards  had  to  face  was  not 
merely  the  extracting  of  the  largest  possible  revenue  from  their 
colonies,  but  also  to  devise  some  sort  of  productive  employment 
for  the  artisans  of  America  which  would  not  interfere  with  home 
industries.  Revilla  Gigedo  discussed  this  question  with  such 
frankness  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  subject  that  one  can 
do  no  better  than  to  quote  his  words  :55  ' '  There  are  many  persons 
who  are  unable  to  devote  themselves  to  agriculture,  and  many 
more  who  cannot  work  in  the  mines  where  so  much  physical 
strength  and  robustness  is  required,  and  it  is  necessary  to  leave 
some  form  of  industry  to  these  people  so  that  they  can  exist, 
without  which  the  severest  and  harshest  penalties  and  prohibition 
are  insufficient,  because  the  simple  necessity  of  living  forces  these 
people  to  contravene  the  law.  The  one  means  of  destroying  the 
manufactures  of  this  realm  is  to  bring  from  Spain  the  same  or 
equivalent  products  at  a  lower  price.  That  is  what  has  hap- 
pened to  the  great  silk  corporation  and  industry  which  manufac- 
tured all  kinds  of  silk  textiles  and  of  which  there  remains  scarcely 

a  memory Having  meditated  very  carefully  on  this  point, 

I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  most  convenient  way  of 
avoiding  the  two  extremes  is  to  encourage  here  the  cultivation  of 
certain  fruits  which  do  not  take  up  the  whole  time  of  strong  work- 
men as  do  the  grains,  but  which  would  nevertheless  give  employ- 
ment to  another  class  of  persons  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  as 
has  proved  to  be  the  case,  especially  with  silk  and  also  with 
hemp,  flax,  and  even  the  cotton,  the  raw  materials  of  which  not 
only  can  be  raised  in  abundance,  but  can  also  be  prepared  and 
woven  up  to  a  certain  point,  which  has  contributed  already  to 


ss  This  brazen  and  cynical  statement  of  the  way  Spain  should  crush 
out  nascent  colonial  manufactures  gains  in  strength  when  it  is  realized 
that  Eevilla  Gigedo  was  one  of  the  most  liberal  and  intelligent  of  all  the 
later  viceroys.  Nevertheless,  he  could  not  escape  from  the  prejudices  of 
his  birth  and  position. 


150          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

the  support  of  quite  a  number  of  persons.  At  the  same  time,  this 
creates  a  new  branch  of  commerce  of  very  great  usefulness  and 
contributes  to  the  progress  of  national  manufactures,  where  there 
is  an  abundance  of  raw  material. ' >5e 

With  such  views  as  the  above  held  by  the  rulers  of  both  the 
mother  country  and  the  colonies,  so  utterly  opposed  to  permit- 
ting the  untrammelled,  natural  growth  of  industry,  and  so 
jealous  of  any  prosperity  in  the  colonies  at  the  expense  of  the 
metropolis,  the  constant  interference  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies 
with  the  viceroy  becomes  intelligible.  There  was  always  a  pos- 
sible danger  of  a  viceroy  allowing  local  industry  to  grow  up 
opposed  to  the  interests  of  Spain.  It  did  not  matter  what  his 
motives  were,  whether  they  were  corrupt  and  for  personal  gain, 
or  for  building  up  a  following  among  the  Mexicans,  and  there- 
fore treasonable.  In  any  event,  it  was  necessary  for  the  crown 
to  retain  its  grip  upon  the  administration  even  at  the  expense 
of  eternal  vigilance. 

A  royal  order  was  required  to  give  final  sanction  to  the 
changes  in  the  methods  of  accounting  in  the  central  office  of 
the  tobacco  monopoly,  and  another  one,  October  15,  1792,  carried 
the  royal  approval  of  a  plan  of  having  the  administrators  of 
the  ramo  de  tabaco  make  monthly  reports  of  their  sales  to  the 
office  of  the  superintendent  of  hacienda.  When  the  viceroy  had 
worked  out  a  scheme  whereby  certain  sorts  of  business  were  to 
be  transacted  at  certain  hours  on  certain  days  of  the  week,  an- 
other royal  order,  October  2,  1790,  overthrew  the  whole  arrange- 
ment. Although,  in  the  words  of  Revilla  Gigedo,  ''the  revenue 
from  tobacco  is  the  most  complicated  by  reason  of  the  number 
of  employees,  the  diversity  of  the  operations  in  the  buying  and 
selling  of  the  various  kinds  of  tobacco,  the  manufacture  of  these 
various  kinds  into  cigarettes,  cigars,  and  the  various  forms  in 


56  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  374-376.  In  the  immediately  following  para- 
graphs of  the  instruccidn,  the  opinion  is  expressed  that  in  many  parts  of 
Mexico  the  natives  had  a  natural  talent  for  weaving  and  that  It  would 
be  possible  to  build  up  a  considerable  industry  in  the  manufacturing  of 
cotton.  Reference  is  made  to  the  favorable  experiment  made  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Tixtla  in  this  industry,  which  it  was  thought  possible  to 
extend  wherever  good  cotton  lands  could  be  found. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  151 

which  they  were  sold  and  eventually  distributed  to  the  public,"57 
the  home  government  was  undismayed  and  continued  to  inter- 
fere with  these  matters  which  required  the  greatest  possible  local 
and  special  information.58  "When  the  tobacco  monopoly  was  es- 
tablished in  Mexico  and  there  resulted  a  great  public  clamor  over 
the  taking  away  of  the  privilege  of  everyone  to  roll  his  puros  and 
cigarillos  in  the  manner  which  seemed  to  him  best,  the  whole  mat- 
ter was  called  up  for  adjudication  in  Madrid,  by  the  real  orden 
of  January  4,  1789.59 

In  the  construction  of  the  great  public  works  of  various  kinds, 
where  large  sums  of  money  were  involved,  the  hands  of  the 
viceroy  were  tied  more  than  ever  by  numberless  orders  and  in- 
structions from  Spain.  There  was  probably  no  more  serious 
problem  of  this  kind  than  that  presented  by  the  drainage  of  the 
valley  in  which  the  City  of  Mexico  was  situated.  The  dangers 
of  an  inundation  of  the  city  were  so  serious  that  for  over  a  cen- 
tury the  question  of  carrying  away  the  surplus  waters  had  been 
ever  present  to  the  Mexican  government.  In  January,  1790,  the 
king  officially  thanked  the  consulado  of  Mexico  for  its  share  in 
the  building  of  the  great  drainage  canal,60  and  after  considerable 
intermediate  correspondence  another  royal  order,  in  the  year 
1793,  ordered  a  new  investigation  of  the  project.61  As  the  work 
progressed,  reports  from  Mexico  and  new  directions  from  Spain 
alternated  continuously,  though  the  interest  taken  by  the  royal 
government  in  the  great  desague  de  Huehuetoca  did  not  lead  to 
a  final  completion  of  the  work  while  Mexico  was  still  a  Spanish 
colony.62  However,  the  interest  taken  by  the  crown  in  this  en- 
gineering work  was  not  appreciably  greater  than  that  given  to 


57  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  1170. 

58/&td.,  art.  1171. 

59  Ibid.,  art.  1172.  January  4,  1793,  a  royal  order,  "muy  reservada," 
directed  the  viceroy  to  find  out  if  there  were  any  means  of  suppressing 
the  tobacco  monopoly,  without  prejudice  to  the  royal  treasury  and  the 
employees  of  the  renta  de  tabaco.  This  project  would  have  left  the  whole 
tobacco  business  to  private  industry. 

so  Ibid.,  art.  262. 

*i  Ibid.,  art.  266. 
art.  268. 


152  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

the  drainage  of  the  interior  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  or  even  the 
problem  of  paving  a  part  of  the  city  streets.  In  May,  1785,  the 
audiencia,  which  had  at  that  time  the  control  of  the  government 
pending  the  arrival  of  the  new  viceroy,  Bernardo  de  Galvez,  re- 
quested the  king  to  grant  a  slight  increase  in  certain  taxes  for 
the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  work  of  paving  a  few  main 
streets.63  It  would  hardly  seem  worth  the  attention  of  the 
Council  of  the  Indies  to  debate  such  a  question,  but  this  is  what 
happened.  By  a  royal  order  of  November  28,  1785,  approval 
was  given  to  the  petition  of  the  audiencia  on  all  points  except 
the  increase  of  the  tax  on  pulque  from  two  to  four  granos  per 
hundredweight.  The  viceroy  was  authorized  "to  continue  the 
work  of  paving,  if  he  considered  the  matter  urgent,  with  the 
revenue  derived  from  the  two  granos  and  the  other  taxes."64 
After  a  report  on  what  had  been  done  had  been  sent  back  to 
Spain,  a  new  royal  order,  dated  February  16,  1791,  informed  the 
viceroy  that  the  instructions  already  given  settled  the  question.  A 
fiscal  then  sent  back  still  more  information  to  the  king  with  the 
further  result  of  more  ordenes  reales  and  more  memorials  from 
Mexico,  but  by  the  end  of  the  administration  of  Revilla  Gigedo 
the  work  was  still  incomplete  and  no  definite  policy  had  been  de- 
cided upon  at  Madrid. 

Even  at  the  risk  of  making  tiresome  these  details  of  a  more 
or  less  useful  interference  in  purely  Mexican  affairs  on  the  part 
of  the  crown,  these  transactions  have  been  stated  in  order  to  show 
by  typical  illustrations  the  character  and  import  of  the  watch 
which  Spain  jealously  maintained  over  her  colonies.  Spanish 
paternalism  stooped  at  no  detail  in  the  complex  political  and 
economic  organization  of  her  dependencies,  and  additional  ex- 
amples of  its  operation  could  be  given,  ad  infinitum.  The  regula- 
tion of  the  exact  manner  in  which  reports  should  be  submitted 
in  some  subordinate  government  office  in  California,  or  the 
amount  of  duty  that  ought  to  be  levied  or  remitted  in  order  to 
enable  Mexican  sugar  to  supply  enough  raw  material  for  the  rum 


ea  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  274. 
e*  Ibid.,  art.  275. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  153 

industry,  were  proper  subjects  for  correspondence  and  inter- 
change of  views  between  the  viceroy  and  his  king. 

The  policy  of  the  Spanish  government  in  looking  upon  the 
viceroy  and  the  audiencia  as  mutual  checks  upon  one  another 
led  to  the  necessity  of  settling  disputes  between  them  in  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  Indies.  Sometimes  these  disputes  were  grave  ones  in- 
volving matters  of  jurisdiction  and  sometimes  they  were  mere 
questions  of  precedence  and  etiquette.  The  most  famous  of  these 
cases  of  a  prolonged  misunderstanding  between  the  viceroy  and 
the  audiencia  was  the  one  which  began  in  1789,  when  Revilla 
Gigedo  began  his  rule.  In  his  own  language  we  have  the  fol- 
lowing account :  ' '  On  taking  possession  of  this  command  I  found 
the  abuse  that  the  personal  guard  of  the  viceroys  accorded  the 
honors  of  a  captain-general  to  the  archbishop  and  the  honors  of 
governor  of  the  province  to  the  audiencia  when  it  appeared  in  a 
body.  Before  trying  to  remedy  this  abuse,  I  had  a  talk  with 
the  archbishop  and  the  two  representatives  of  the  audiencia,  in 
which  I  told  them  I  did  not  wish  to  violate  the  military  ordinances 
governing  such  matters,  and  accordingly  I  suspended  the  rule 
which  related  to  military  honors  on  the  plaza.65  The  archbishop 
and  the  audiencia  promptly  appealed  to  the  king,  asking  that  the 
military  honors  formerly  shown  them  on  public  occasions  be  con- 
tinued. They  based  their  claim  on  the  royal  order  of  August  3, 
1765,  which  ordered  a  continuation  of  such  honors  to  the  audien- 
cia after  they  had  been  suspended  by  the  order  of  the  Viceroy 
Cruillas.66  They  further  declared  that  unless  they  were  so 
treated  they  would  suffer  a  loss  of  esteem  in  the  eyes  of  the 
public.  The  result  of  these  appeals  was  a  real  orden,  January 
25,  1792,  deciding  the  main  contention  in  favor  of  the  archbishop 
and  the  audiencia,  and  allowing  them  the  same  honors  which  they 
had  enjoyed  before  the  accession  of  Revilla  Gigedo.67  Another 
decree  of  April  of  the  same  year,  however,  saved  the  face  of  the 
viceroy  by  forbidding  his  personal  guard  to  give  royal  honors  to 


65  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  524-525. 

66  Ibid.,  art.  526. 

67  Ibid.,  art.  527. 


154  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

anyone  but  himself  and  members  of  the  king's  family.  To  soothe 
the  archbishop  and  the  audiencia,  it  was  provided  by  this  same 
decree  that  a  special  palace  guard  be  created  to  render  them  the 
proper  military  honors.  This  meant  more  appeals  to  the  king 
on  the  part  of  the  viceroy 's  rivals,  this  time  through  the  secretary 
of  war  instead  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies.  After  considerable 
delays  and  two  more  ordenes  reales,  a  decision  was  at  last  reached 
and  Revilla  Gigedo  was  finally  sustained  in  the  position  he  had 
taken.68 

In  the  cases  described  above,  the  viceroy  prevailed  signally 
over  his  political  opponents,  but  in  the  most  important  cases  de- 
cided between  them  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, decisions  had  been  the  other  way.  The  high  court  com- 
posed of  lawyers  and  churchmen  must  have  felt  as  great  a  con- 
tempt for  the  soldier-politician  who  had  been  elevated  to  the 
first  place,  as  such  an  able  soldier  and  statesman  as  Revilla 
Gigedo  felt  for  them  when  they  attempted  to  interfere  in  military 
affairs  and  demand  for  themselves  the  highest  military  honors. 
The  creation  of  the  office  of  regente,™  practically  excluding  the 
viceroy  from  his  former  position  as  chief  justice,  and  the  royal 
order  which  forbade  his  taking  any  part  in  judicial  affairs, 
were  objected  to  vehemently  by  the  chief  executive  but  were  main- 
tained in  force  in  spite  of  his  protests  to  Madrid.70  This  was 
therefore  a  victory  for  the  lawyers,  and  all  things  considered, 
their  position  was  stronger  relatively  to  the  viceroy  toward  the 
close  of  the  Spanish  regime  than  it  wras  at  the  beginning. 

It  is  therefore  apparent  that  the  home  government  had  suc- 
ceeded in  so  shaping  the  constitution  of  the  viceregal  office  as  to 
maintain  a  balance  between  the  audiencia  and  the  viceroy  and  to 
keep  a  close  watch  on  all  details  of  the  administration.  It  was 
evidently  the  policy  at  Madrid  to  confer  upon  the  viceroy  all 
possible  dignity  and  maintain  him  in  that  dignity  against  all 
opposition,  but  never  to  allow  him  a  disproportionate  amount 


es  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  529. 
69  Ibid.,  art.  54. 
™  Ibid.,  art.  64. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  155 

of  power.  That  no  invasions  of  his  dignity  were  to  be  allowed 
can  be  seen  from  the  history  of  the  struggle  for  precedence  be- 
tween the  viceroy  and  the  audiencia.  In  the  words  of  Revilla 
Gigedo  himself,71  ''The  presidency  of  the  audiencia  places  the 
viceroy  at  the  head  of  that  body  but  not  to  give  orders  to  it,  as 
even  his  acts  in  matters  of  justice  are  subject  to  it ;  and  although 
he  is  present  at  its  sessions,  which  is  very  difficult,  considering  the 
grave  and  continuous  occupations  which  so  vast  a  command  im- 
poses upon  him,  he  does  not  have  a  vote  in  matters  which  are 
regularly  dealt  with  there — that  is,  matters  of  justice.  Thus  it 
comes  about,  that  the  pre-eminence  of  the  audiencia  scarcely  con- 
sists, when  the  viceroy  is  not  a  lawyer,  in  more  than  the  promin- 
ence of  the  place  which  he  occupies  when  they  meet  together  in 
public  functions. ' '  The  ceremonies  to  be  observed  on  these  public 
occasions,  such  as  the  viceroy's  riding  alone  in  the  state  carriage 
and  having  the  regente  walk  at  his  left  side,  and  similar  matters, 
were  definitely  determined  by  the  real  cedula  of  October  17, 
1791.  The  vote  of  the  viceroy  in  the  audiencia  had  no  more 
weight  than  that  of  any  other  member  and  when  decisions  were 
rendered  contrary  to  his  judgment  he  did  not  have  the  power  of 
rectifying  things  himself  but  could  only  report  matters  to  Spain, 
giving  reasons  for  the  action  he  proposed. 

The  last  example  to  be  given  of  the  correspondence  between 
Mexico  and  Madrid  is  that  one  dealing  with  the  difficult  problem 
of  the  Provincias  Internas.72  These  somewhat  misnamed  interior 
provinces  were,  in  1789,  in  a  most  critical  condition  because  of 
the  dissensions  among  their  officers  and  the  attempt  of  the  com- 
mandant to  make  himself  independent  of  the  Mexican  viceroyalty. 
On  account  of  this  trouble,  Revilla  Gigedo  was  ordered  by  the 
king  to  visit  the  districts  affected.  In  consequence  of  this  visit, 
a  report  was  sent  home,  February  12,  1790,  declaring  in  sub- 
stance that  the  independence  of  the  Provincias  Internas  was  not 
desirable,  and  a  new  plan  for  their  government  was  submitted 


Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  20. 
Ibid.,  art.  719. 


156  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

at  the  same  time.73  In  the  meanwhile  order  had  been  restored 
there  and  everything  was  tranquil  when  the  real  orden  of  Nov. 
ember  22,  1792,  provided  for  the  absolute  independence  from  the 
viceroyalty  of  the  states  of  Sonora,  Nueva  Viscaya,  New  Mexico, 
Coahuila,  and  Texas.  In  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  the 
advice  of  the  colonial  governor  was  not  followed,  but  he  was 
employed  freely  as  a  trusted  agent  in  carrying  out  the  wishes  of 
the  royal  government.  Where  there  was  such  a  dispute  over 
jurisdiction,  as  in  the  case  of  the  commandant  of  the  interior 
provinces  who  claimed  an  entirely  independent  position  and  ac- 
tually exercised  it  in  military  affairs,  the  interference  of  the 
crown  was  necessary.  This  interference  was  perhaps  the  more 
necessary  because  of  the  difficulties  arising  out  of  the  financial 
relations  of  the  two  areas.74  However,  in  most  of  the  cases  de- 
scribed above,  it  would  seem  as  if  greater  simplicity  and  con- 
sistency in  the  administration  would  have  been  secured  by  giving 
to  the  viceroy  a  greater  degree  of  discretion.75 

From  a  study  of  these  illustrations  of  the  relations  of  the 
viceregal  government  to  that  of  Spain,  it  will  be  possible  to  make 
clear  the  following  conclusion.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  ap- 
parently no  limit  to  the  scope  of  the  interference  of  Spain  in 
Mexican  affairs.  If  anything  occurred  in  the  Mexican  adminis- 
tration which  awakened  the  slightest  degree  of  suspicion  or  in- 
terest in  Madrid,  the  whole  matter  would  be  taken  up  for  con- 
sideration there.  Detailed  information  upon  the  subject  in  all 
its  bearings  would  be  ordered  from  Mexico,  and  a  decision  would 
be  reached  on  the  basis  of  these  written  reports.  If  it  were  not 
a  matter  simply  to  be  decided  one  way  or  the  other,  but  some 
new  administrative  project  which  had  to  be  thought  out  care- 
fully and  in  great  detail,  it  was  a  very  common  thing  for  the 


73  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  720.    In  a  letter  of  February  28,  1793,  the  vice- 
roy tried  to  convince  the  government  of  Charles  IV  of  the  impossibility 
of  really  making  the   interior  provinces  independent,  at   least  without 
great  expense,  as  had  been  found  out  during  the  administration  of  Bueareli. 

74  The  head  of  the  Provincias  Internas,  bearing  the  military  title  of 
commandant,  had  to  rule  over  a  Spanigh  frontier  community  which  was 
too  poor  to  maintain  the  military  establishments  necessary  for  its  defense. 
Hence  the  financial  dependence  on  the  viceroyalty  of  New  Spain. 

75  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  721. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  157 

Council  of  the  Indies  to  send  along  with  their  decisions  a  most 
elaborate  set  of  rules  to  govern  the  enforcement  of  the  act.  Nearly 
every  military  unit,  or  commercial  company,  or  organization  of 
any  kind,  had  its  own  particular  constitution  and  by-laws.  Such 
corporate  bodies  as  the  University,  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts, 
or  the  Consulado  of  Mexico,  had  constitutions  many  times  the 
length  of  that  of  the  United  States.  It  very  often  happened, 
moreover,  that  some  one  of  these  by-laws  or  some  procedure  in 
pursuance  of  them,  required  in  itself  special  interpretations  from 
home,  so  that  in  a  certain  sense  no  question  was  ever  definitely 
adjudicated,  and  there  was  no  limit  to  the  piling  up  in  the 
archives  of  official  documents  and  correspondence. 

In  the  second  place,  and  this  complementary  to  the  statement 
just  made,  the  viceroy  and  the  audiencia  referred  all  sorts  of 
questions  to  Madrid.  It  was  evidently  understood  that  nothing 
but  a  very  temporary  or  unimportant  departure  from  the  usual 
routine  would  be  tolerated  by  the  crown,  so  that  any  measure 
in  the  slightest  degree  novel  was  usually  sent  up  to  the  Council 
of  the  Indies  for  final  decision.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the 
home  government  made  any  effort  to  discourage  these  constant 
and  petty  appeals,  and  it  seemed  preferable  to  despatch  count- 
less ordenes  reales  approving  of  some  act,  rather  than  to  allow  the 
possibility  of  the  viceroy's  making  a  mistake  independently. 

In  the  third  place,  the  vast  deal  of  correspondence  and  the 
timidity  of  the  colonial  officials  in  acting  alone,  resulted  in  a 
painfully  slow  pace  in  matters  of  administration.76  The  criticism 
which  has  always  been  made  by  foreign  critics  of  the  Spanish 
administration  everywhere  is  that  of  insatiable  desire  to  draw  up 
papers.  A  mass  of  documents  has  always  figured  as  the  great 
cause  of  the  retardation  of  the  course  of  Spanish  justice.  It  cer- 
tainly made  very  cumbersome  the  routine  of  colonial  government, 
and  the  delays  caused  by  collecting  information  and  drawing  up 
reports  became  proverbial. 


7«  So  much  has  been  said  about  this  feature  of  the  Spanish  administra- 
tion that  a  similar  state  of  affairs  existing  in  the  English  colonies  should  be 
pointed  out  as  a  corrective  to  the  idea  that  Spain  had  a  monopoly  of  this 
kind  of  inefficiency.  Greene,  pp.  66-77. 


158          University  of  California  Publications  in  History 

In  the  fourth  place,  by  means  of  the  minute  supervision  which 
the  crown  exercised  over  the  viceroys  in  America,  the  latter  were 
held  to  an  accountability  which  could  not  be  secured  in  any  other 
way  without  entirely  remodelling  their  system  of  government. 
In  the  Spanish-American  viceroyalties  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  legislature  to  restrain  the  executive  through  the  power  of 
the  purse.  The  English  royal  governors  in  North  America  were 
by  no  means  dictated  to  in  matters  of  detail  to  the  same  extent 
as  were  the  Spanish  governors  in  the  south,  but  the  English  pro- 
vincial executives  were  ever  watched  by  a  jealous  assembly  armed 
with  the  power  of  withholding  supplies.  A  Mexican  audiencia 
was  perhaps  as  jealous  as  the  colonial  assembly,  but  there 
was  the  all-important  difference  that  the  audiencia  could  not  stop 
the  whole  governmental  machine  by  its  control  of  appropriations. 

In  the  fifth  place,  it  is  undeniable  that  there  was  no  other 
European  power  which  had  in  its  service,  at  home,  such  an  ex- 
perienced and  able  corps  of  experts  on  colonial  affairs  as  was 
the  Council  of  the  Indies.  This  fact,  combined  with  traditions 
of  an  absolute  monarchy,  doubtless  tempted  the  kings  of  Spain 
to  rely  more  on  the  methods  of  a  highly  centralized  administra- 
tion than  would  have  been  permissible  in  Great  Britain.  All 
the  members  of  this  Council  were  supposed  to  be  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  details  of  government  in  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Indies,  and  these  very  qualifications  made  it  all  the  easier  for 
them  to  legislate  on  fine  points  where  an  English  parliament 
would  have  to  be  content  with  laying  down  broad  lines  and  leav- 
ing to  the  colonial  officials  the  working  out  of  the  details. 


1913J  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  159 


CHAPTEE  III 

THE  VICEROY  AS  GOVERNOR1 

Anyone  but  slightly  acquainted  with  Spanish- American  insti- 
tutions might  naturally  fall  into  the  error  of  assuming  that  the 
duties  of  the  viceroy  could  easily  and  accurately  be  classified 
under  the  heads  of  civil,  military,  and  ecclesiastical;  and  that 
these  three  grand  divisions  were  administered  by  the  viceroy  as 
governor,  as  captain-general,  and  vice-patron,  respectively. 
Doubtless  the  whole  mass  of  viceregal  duties  might  be  appor- 
tioned off  into  those  three  fairly  definite  compartments,  but  in 
the  matter  of  actual  administration  it  will  be  found  that  each  de- 
partment was  not  administered  by  the  viceroy  in  any  strictly  well- 
defined  capacity. 

In  a  general  way,  of  course,  the  viceroy's  commission  as  gober- 
nador,  or  governor,  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  civil  adminis- 
tration, just  as  the  great  department  of  war  and  military  matters 
belonged  to  him  as  captain-general,  and  as  his  acts  in  matters 
ecclesiastical  were  performed  as  vice-patron,  but  these  statements 
are  true  only  in  a  general  sense.2  The  following  important  quali- 
fications of  the  above  statement  must  be  made  at  the  very  outset. 
The  civil  side  of  the  ramo  militar,  the  work  of  a  modern  war  de- 
partment, was  performed  by  the  captain-general,  and  many  mat- 
ters of  the  nature  of  organized  charity  and  poor  relief,  which  we 


1  In  the  writing  of  this  chapter  little  or  no  help  was  received  from  the 
secondary    authorities.      These    writers,    even    including    Bancroft,  are    at 
their  worst  when  handling  the   civil  administration   of   New  Spain.      This 
may  be  a  reflection  of  the  obscurities  of  the  primary  sources,  for  they 
are  by  no  means  clear  and  are  often  even  contradictory.    The  instructions 
of  the  viceroys  are,  however,  the  best  material  available,  and  those  of 
the  two  Revilla  Gigedos,  of  Marquina,  and  to  a  less  degree,  of  Branciforte 
were  most  used  for  this  chapter. 

2  Eevilla  Gigedo,  the  Elder,  art.  26. 


160          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

now  see  carried  on  as  one  of  the  functions  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment, were  then  done  by  the  church  or  by  the  vice-patron.  More- 
over, some  of  the  most  important  activities  of  the  viceroy  as  a 
civil  administrator  were  performed,  not  by  the  governor,  but  by 
the  viceroy  as  superintendent-general  of  the  real  hacienda.  The 
regulation  of  the  finances,  always  one  of  the  most  important 
branches  of  a  modern  government,  did  not  then  belong  to  the 
governor  at  all,  and  consequently  must  be  treated  independently 
in  a  chapter  by  itself. 

Though  in  the  eyes  of  the  Spaniards  it  was  the  office  of 
captain-general  which  was  the  greatest  ornament  and  source  of 
power  to  the  rulers  of  New  Spain,  the  investigator  of  the  present 
day  must  be  more  interested  in  the  way  civil  affairs  were  con- 
ducted, the  way  justice  was  or  was  not  secured,  and  the  way 
the  government  touched  the  every-day  matters  of  industry,  com- 
merce, and  the  general  welfare,  than  in  the  purely  military  prob- 
lems of  the  time.  The  latter  were  not  so  vital  to  the  national 
safety  or  to  the  Spanish  supremacy  in  America  as  the  more  pro- 
saic questions  of  handling  the  Indians  wisely  or  binding  the 
Creoles  to  Spain  politically,  by  wise  economic  and  commercial 
legislation.  There  was  little  real  danger  to  Spain  of  losing  her 
American  empire  as  the  French  lost  Canada,  as  long  as  her  rule 
was  acceptable  to  the  great  mass  of  the  colonial  population,  and 
thus  the  real  problems  before  the  viceroys  were  civil  ones,  and 
the  governors  and  superintendents-general  of  the  real  hacienda 
were  the  most  important  officials  of  New  Spain,  outward  show 
and  pomp  notwithstanding. 

In  treating  of  these  duties  of  the  viceroy  as  governor  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  this  aspect  of  his  rule  the  viceroy  was 
more  of  a  local  official  than  he  was  as  captain-general,  vice-patron, 
or  superintendent  of  finance.  In  addition  to  the  three  last  named 
positions,  the  viceroy's  authority  was  as  wide  as  the  whole  terri- 
tory of  the  viceroyalty,  but  as  governor  he  was  only  one  of  a 
dozen  or  so  governors,  with  this  difference,  that  the  province 
of  Mexico  was  by  all  odds  the  wealthiest,  most  populous,  and 
most  important  of  them  all.  As  governor  of  this  central  prov- 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  161 

ince,  containing  as  it  did  the  capital  city  and  the  central  admin- 
istrative offices,  the  viceroy  might  pitch  the  tone  of  the  provincial 
administration  for  the  whole  country,  and  aside  from  this  indirect 
influence,  he  was  not  lacking  in  actual  authority  over  the  other 
governors.3  In  this  matter,  then,  the  governor  of  Mexico  was 
not  the  apex  of  the  great  administrative  hierarchy,  but  only  a 
sort  of  primus  inter  pares.  However,  the  governor  of  Mexico  had 
an  influence  on  the  civil  administration  disproportionately  greater 
than  the  size  of  his  province  would  justify.  All  the  governors, 
and  later  the  intendants,  were  constantly  receiving  directions 
from  the  Council  of  the  Indies,  and  it  need  not  be  a  matter  of 
surprise  to  find  that  the  viceroy-governor  had  far  greater  oppor- 
tunities for  influencing  the  Council  of  the  Indies  than  could  pos- 
sibly be  possessed  by  the  other  governors.  This  gave  him  a  posi- 
tion of  advantage,  which,  combined  with  the  superior  personality 
of  the  man  chosen  for  this  post,  usually  made  the  governor  of 
Mexico  the  central  figure  in  the  provincial  as  well  as  in  the  vice- 
regal government.  This  same  principle  was  observed  after  the 
decree  of  the  intendants  was  put  into  effect  in  1786,  so  that  the 
intendant  of  the  province  of  Mexico  was  regularly  the  viceroy 
himself. 

According  to  the  laws  of  the  Indies  it  was  provided  that  the 
viceroys  ''also  be  governors  of  the  districts  under  their  com- 
mand, ' '  and  they  were  further  ordered  to  govern  their  dominions 
in  peace  and  justice.4  There  were  many  other  royal  orders  which 
kept  this  precept  before  the  minds  of  the  viceroys,  and  they  were 
made,  in  a  special  sense,  the  guardians  of  the  natives.  But  about 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  serious  inroads  were  made 
on  the  judicial  powers  of  the  viceroy.  Although  these  judicial 
functions  were  gradually  taken  away,  with  the  exception  to  be 
noted  later  in  regard  to  the  natives,  one  of  the  most  important 


s  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  251.  Here  the  viceroy  declares  that  all  the  pro- 
vincial towns  follow  the  example  of  the  capital. 

4  76 id.,  art.  63.  "Deben  los  Vireyes  ser  tambien  Gobernadores  en  los 
distritos  de  su  mando,  segun  la  ley  quinta  del  titulo  de  los  Vireyes  y 
Presidentes  en  la  Eecopilacion  de  Indias,  y  deben,  segun  ellas  y  otras, 
gobernar  los  pueblos  en  paz  y  en  justicia.  Hay  algunas  Eeales  Cedulas 
que  repiten  este  precepto  a  los  Vireyes,  y  aun  les  han  reconvenido  de 
no  haber  hecho  que  se  administre  justicia  y  se  castiguen  los  delitos. " 


162          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

duties  of  the  governor  and  the  one  which  will  be  considered  first 
here,  was  that  of  having  general  charge  of  the  enforcement  of  the 
laws.  The  more  recent  laws  issued  by  the  Spanish  crown  had 
had  the  effect  of  depriving  "the  viceroys  absolutely  of  any  part 
in  the  procedure  of  the  administration  of  justice,  either  alone 
or  in  company  with  the  other  judges,  voting  with  them  in  the 
audiencia."5  By  1794,  these  changes  had  been  carried  so  far 
that  the  supreme  power  in  matters  of  justice  lay  in  the  audiencia, 
so  that  it  had  the  last  word  in  determining  all  cases  appealed  to 
it  from  inferior  tribunals.6  Though  the  foregoing  statements  show 
clearly  enough  that  the  later  tendencies  of  Spanish  legislation 
were  to  separate  all  judicial  functions  from  the  chief  executive  in 
New  Spain  and  to  reduce  the  governor  of  Mexico  to  the  position 
of  a  provincial  executive,  pure  and  simple,  there  remains  some- 
thing to  be  said  on  the  other  side. 

The  governor  had  still  been  allowed  to  remain  president  of  the 
audiencia  and  as  long  as  he  remained  in  this  position  it  was 
practically  impossible  to  prevent  his  having  some  influence  on  the 
courts  of  justice.  In  a  great  many  cases  matters  of  government 
were  so  inextricably  intermingled  with  matters  of  justice  that  it 
was  not  possible  to  separate  them,  and  in  such  cases  the  governor 
had  to  use  his  vote  and  take  a  hand  in  the  settlement  of  such 
matters,  regardless  of  royal  prohibitions.  In  a  land  where  ad- 
ministration concerned  itself  so  much  with  the  business  and  the 
rights  of  citizens,  there  must  have  been  a  great  many  cases  on 
the  border-line  between  justice  and  politics,  and  all  over  this 
doubtful  field  the  influence  of  the  governor  was  felt.7  Inasmuch 
as  the  audiencia  was  continually  seeking  to  extend  its  jurisdiction 
at  the  expense  of  the  other  magistrates,  the  latter  were  driven 
in  self-defence  to  assert  their  power  to  the  uttermost,  and  thus 


6  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  64. 

•  Ibid.,  art.  65.  Though  the  audiencia  was  in  one  sense  the  supreme 
court  of  the  country,  it  had  little  resemblance  to  such  a  body  as  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Usually  the  judges  were  divided 
among  three  groups,  or  solas,  two  for  civil  suits  and  one  for  the  criminal. 
It  was  very  seldom  that  the  whole  audiencia  met  as  one  body.  This  vice- 
roy recommended  the  reduction  of  the  number  of  oidores  from  ten  to  eight. 

7  Ibid.,  art.  84. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  163 

the  governors  were  tempted  to  exercise  a  part  of  the  judicial 
functions  under  the  color  of  administering  their  political  office. 
In  general,  however,  in  the  course  of  this  long  struggle 
between  the  viceroys  and  the  audiencias  over  the  matters  that 
might  be  appealed  to  the  latter  and  those  that  might  not,  it  be- 
came evident  that  the  audiencias  were  gaining  ground.  The  vice- 
roys kept  insisting  to  the  last  that  the  crown  definitely  settle 
the  dispute,8  but  in  the  meanwhile  they  held  to  their  prerogatives 
in  a  way  that  must  have  seemed  to  the  audiencias  nothing  less 
than  usurpation. 

The  remedy  suggested  by  Revilla  Gigedo  to  Branciforte  was, 
in  his  words,  "  ....  very  simple  to  preserve  the  decorum  of 
the  viceroy,  the  authority  of  the  audiencia  and  of  the  judges,  and 
the  efficiency  of  the  administration  of  justice  to  the  vassals  of 
His  Majesty,  and  would  be  to  have  the  decisions  appealed  from 
the  Viceroy,  heard  before  himself,  with  two  or  three  of  the  judges 
associated  with  him. '  '9  Such  an  arrangement,  he  thought,  would 
not  embarrass  everybody  as  did  the  arrangements  then  in  force, 
and  the  authority  of  the  viceroy  would  suffer  less  in  the  popular 
esteem  if  his  decisions  were  set  aside  in  his  own  name.10  This  he 
believed  would  also  tend  to  expedite  questions  under  adjudication 
and  so  relieve  one  of  the  worst  abuses  of  Spanish  justice,  thus 
frankly  making  the  governor  the  presiding  judge  of  the  highest 
court  of  appeals.  It  is  interesting  to  see  a  proposal  of  this  kind 
put  forth  on  the  eve  of  the  dissolution  of  Spain 's  rule  in  America. 
During  this  period  of  war  and  confusion,  which  was  not  to  be 
interrupted  by  a  period  of  peace  until  Mexico  was  independent, 
there  was  no  opportunity  for  reforms,  and  so  the  struggle  between 
the  audiencia  and  the  viceroy  was  never  settled. 

In  spite  of  the  contest  with  the  audiencia  and  the  tendency  of 
the  crown  to  limit  the  judicial  functions  of  the  governor,  there 
were  still  left  to  him  four  distinct  situations  wherein  he  was 
called  upon  to  act  as  judge.  The  first,  was  as  judge  of  the  City 


s  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art. 
» Ibid.,  art.  90. 
10  Ibid.,  art.  91. 


164          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

of  Mexico,  under  the  title  of  corregidor.11  The  corregidor  was 
the  chief  official  of  the  city  and  so  presents  some  analogy  to  a 
modern  mayor,  but  he  was  more  of  a  judge  and  less  of  an  execu- 
tive than  the  mayor  of  an  American  city.  It  would  seem  a  patent 
absurdity  to  thrust  this  additional  burden  upon  the  ruler  of  the 
viceroyalty  and  at  times  the  two  offices  were  kept  separate,  but 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  governor  and  the  cor- 
regidor were  one.  The  second  judicial  duty  of  the  governor  was 
exercised  as  chief  of  the  general  Indian  court,  the  juzgado  gen- 
eral de  indios,  which  was  exclusively  for  the  trial  of  law-suits 
involving  the  natives,  and  was  the  highest  court  of  this  kind.  The 
third  and  fourth  cases  did  not  belong  strictly  to  the  governor, 
but  rather  to  the  viceroy  in  his  other  capacities.  As  subdelegate 
of  the  post  office  department,  which  meant  the  chief  of  that  div- 
ision of  the  administration  for  the  whole  viceroyalty,  he  was 
judge  in  the  first  instance  of  all  cases  growing  out  of  this  branch, 
of  the  public  business,  appeals  going  from  him  to  the  national 
head  of  this  department,  the  ministro  de  correos,  in  Madrid.12 
Also,  as  captain-general,  rather  than  as  governor,  he  was  supreme 
judge  in  all  cases  growing  out  of  the  fuero  militar. 

In  the  light  of  all  this  evidence  the  conclusion  must  be  drawn 
that  the  home  government  did  not  succeed  in  establishing  any 
clear  line  of  demarcation  between  the  executive  and  the  judicial 
divisions  of  the  viceroy's  powers.  The  order  from  Madrid  not 
to  "proceder  en  punto  de  administracion  de  justicia"  could  not 
be  obeyed  even  in  spirit  without  a  more  violent  change  in  the 
governmental  organization  than  was  desired  at  home,  and  in  con- 
sequence the  order  remained  practically  a  dead  letter.13  Nothing 
has  been  discovered  among  the  authorities  to  show  why  the 
Council  of  the  Indies  sought  to  divest  the  executive  officers  in 


11  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  79.     The  courts  of  justice  for  the  City  of  Mexico 
were  eight  in  number,  there  being  one  court  for  each  of  the  eight  cuarteles. 
Of  the  eight  judges,  five  were  alcaldes  de  carte,  two  were  alcaldes  ordin- 
arios,  and  one  was  the  corregidor.     In  each  of  the  eight   districts  there 
were  also  four  inferior  alcaldes  who  had  little  discretion  in  legal  matters 
and  merely  carried  out  orders  of  their  superiors.     This  was  the  same 
scheme  that  worked  so  well  in  Madrid.     There  were  twenty-eight  cities 
in  1794  that  had  alcaldes  ordinarios. 

12  Ibid.,  art.  106. 
is  Ibid.,  art.  64. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  165 

the  New  World  of  their  role  as  judges.14  There  had  been,  to  be 
sure,  plenty  of  complaint  in  regard  to  the  amount,  the  tedious- 
ness,  and  the  expense  of  litigation  in  the  colonies.  There  was, 
too,  the  old  complaint  of  corruption,  and  the  Madrid  government 
may  have  sought  to  attack  this  old  evil  by  taking  the  adminis- 
trator off  the  bench.  It  is  possible  that  the  theory  of  the 
separation  of  powers  may  have  been  working  among  Spanish 
statesmen,  but  there  is  no  direct  evidence  that  the  ideas  of 
Montesquieu  were  consciously  applied  in  Spanish- America. 

A  much  more  important  work  for  the  governors  of  Mexico 
than  the  administration  of  justice  was  the  building  of  public 
works.  The  construction  of  roads,  bridges,  drainage  canals,  and 
public  buildings  of  various  kinds  was  assuredly  one  of  the  most 
engrossing  of  the  governor's  duties.  In  spite  of  the  many  dis- 
advantages under  which  they  labored,  these  Mexican  rulers  were 
able  to  accomplish  much  in  the  way  of  improving  internal  com- 
munications and  developing  the  resources  of  the  country.  In  the 
words  of  one  of  the  viceroys,  "In  the  realm  of  economics  and 
policy  the  laws  have  sought  to  reserve  to  the  viceroys  a  wider 
jurisdiction  than  in  that  of  justice;  nevertheless,  very  seldom 
can  they  exercise  their  faculties  without  contradiction  and  in 
many  points  they  find  themselves  restricted  by  various  royal 
orders,  especially  in  the  handling  of  money  derived  from  certain 
taxes  (la  inversion  de  propios  y  arbitrios)  which  funds  ought  to 
be  used  for  general  public  utility  inasmuch  as  they  are  the 
general  property  of  the  district  which  pays  them."15  Though 
the  governor  had  real  power  in  the  matter  of  public  improve- 
ments, both  in  their  initiation  and  in  their  superintendence  while 
in  the  process  of  construction,  there  was  a  lack  of  re- 
sources, both  in  population  and  money,  to  permit  a  great  deal 
being  done.16  Besides  the  configuration  of  the  country,  which 

«  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  83.  Outside  the  City  of  Mexico  the  intendants  and 
their  assessors  were  the  best  fitted,  in  the  opinion  of  the  viceroy,  to  exercise 
the  simplest  judicial  functions.  The  subdelegates  were  such  an  inferior 
lot  of  men  and  so  lacking  in  independence  that  they  could  not  be  trusted 
in  any  judicial  capacity. 

is  Ibid.,  art.  141. 
art.  142. 


166  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

by  its  roughness  and  great  elevation  often  converted  the  building 
of  a  carriage  road  into  a  veritable  feat  of  engineering,  there 
was  always  the  permanent  difficulty  of  an  extremely  sparse 
population.  This  sparse  population  was  not  only  of  a  low 
average  per  capita  wealth,  but  was  further  divided  into  different 
races,  so  that  it  was  not  only  scattered  but  disunited.17 

The  principal  evil  that  was  complained  of  as  standing  in  the 
way  of  the  carrying  through  of  the  great  public  improvements 
was  the  inefficiency  of  the  local  administration  and  the  lack  of  a 
concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  governor.18  One  of 
the  prominent  examples  of  this  weakness  of  the  local  authorities, 
and  the  consequent  difficulties  placed  in  the  way  of  the  governor, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  building  of  the  road  from  the  capital  to 
the  town  of  Toluca.  The  valley  of  Toluca  was  called  the  granary 
of  Mexico  and  there  was  urgent  need  of  easy  communication 
between  the  two.19  In  1768  the  first  survey  was  made  by  an 
engineer  named  Ailmert.  Nine  years  later  they  had  proceeded  as 
far  as  drawing  up  plans.20  By  1785  the  question  was  again 
brought  to  the  front  and  a  scheme  of  operations  was  prepared. 
The  financing  of  the  project  was  long  and  difficult,  it  being 
especially  hard  to  get  the  different  localities  sufficiently  inter- 
ested to  appropriate  the  necessary  money,21  and  it  was  only 
through  the  generosity  of  a  private  citizen  that  this  money  was 
secured  as  a  loan.  The  work  was  at  last  begun  in  the  fall  of 
1793,  and  seemed  to  be  regarded  by  Revilla  Gigedo  as  one  of  the 
monuments  to  his  administration.22 


IT  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  143  and  144.  According  to  the  census  of  the 
year  1790,  the  population  of  the  viceroyalty  was  estimated  at  three  and 
a  half  millions  at  the  outside.  The  forbidding  of  Sapniards  to  live  in 
the  villages  of  the  Indians  had,  of  course,  kept  the  races  apart  and 
denied  the  Indians  the  advantage  of  contact  with  a  superior  civilization. 

is  Ibid.,  art.  154.  Also,  for  details  of  the  duties  of  a  provincial  gov- 
ernor see  the  correspondence  in  the  first  volumes  of  the  Provincial  State 
Papers,  particularly  vols.  i-iii. 

"JfttdL,  art.  173. 

20  Ibid.,  art.  174. 
art.  177. 


22  Ibid.,  art.  185.     The  status  of  the  project  in  1797  may  be  seen  from 
the  letter  Branciforte  to  Paz,  Dec.  27,  1796. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  167 

Of  a  similar  nature,  and  equally  illustrative  of  the  activities 
of  the  governor,  was  the  work  on  the  other  great  highways,  such 
as  the  road  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico,  and  from  Mexico  to 
Acapulco,23  and  the  road  leading  from  Mexico  in  a  northeastly 
direction  to  the  region  of  Tampico.24  It  is  interesting  to  see  how 
one  of  the  roads  proposed  to  the  viceroy  at  this  same  time  was 
rejected  for  political  reasons.  Though  the  viceroy  admitted  that 
the  chief  obstacle  to  internal  trade  was  the  absence  of  roads,  the 
building  of  the  one  from  Louisiana,  through  Texas,  and  down 
to  the  City  of  Mexico  was  opposed  by  him  because  it  would 
interfere  with  the  security  of  the  Spanish  domain  from  an  attack 
from  the  north.  These  reasons  were  stated  by  Revilla  Gigedo 
in  a  report  to  the  Ministers  to  the  Indies,  April  30,  1793.  The 
substance  of  his  argument  was  that  the  inhabitants  of  New 
Orleans  in  particular,  and  to  a  less  extent  the  Americans  in 
general,  were  deserving  of  suspicion.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to 
recommend  the  abandonment  of  the  town  of  Naeogdoches  and 
the  giving  up  of  any  attempt  to  encourage  trade  between  Texas 
and  Louisiana.25 

Of  greater  importance  to  the  City  of  Mexico  than  the  build- 
ing of  public  highways  was  the  proper  drainage  of  the  valley  in 
which  the  City  of  Mexico  was  situated.  In  the  language  of  the 
instruction  to  Branciforte,  the  drainage  canal  of  Huehuetoca  was 
"always  and  of  right  ought  to  be  one  of  the  principal  cares  of 
the  viceroys,  as  upon  that  depends  the  freedom  of  this  capital 
from  a  contagion  as  fearful  as  that  of  the  inundations,  and  for 
which  purpose  there  has  been  assigned  sufficient  funds  derived 
from  the  three  taxes  which  yield  twenty  thousand  pesos  an- 
nually."26 The  direction  of  the  actual  construction  of  this 
drainage  canal,  or  desague,  as  well  as  the  providing  of  sufficient 
revenues  for  it,  fell  to  the  governor.  Prom  the  earliest  days  the 


23  Eevilla  Gigedo.  art.  197.     Also,  Brancif  orte  to  Paz,  Sept.  26,  1796. 

24  Ibid.,  art.  196. 

25  Ibid.,  art.  448. 

2«  Ibid.,  art.  268.  There  had  not  been  a  serious  flood  in  the  City  of 
Mexico  since  the  seventeenth  century,  but  the  fear  of  the  recurrence 
of  such  an  event  was  never  absent. 


168          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

problem  of  disposing  of  the  vast  body  of  surplus  water  which 
accumulated  in  the  valley  of  Mexico  during  the  rainy  season  had 
remained  most  difficult  to  solve.  The  city  was  surrounded  by 
low  mountains  which  shed  their  waters  into  the  valley  from  all 
sides,27  and  some  of  the  floods  had  caused  great  damage  to  prop- 
erty and  great  loss  of  life.  Various  experiments  had  been  made 
in  the  drainage  of  the  valley,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  the 
question  had  been  settled  rightly  by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. A  special  corps  of  officials  had  been  created  to  look  after 
this  work,  at  the  head  of  which  was  placed  a  superintendent, 
or  juez  superintendent e.  To  assist  him  there  was  created  a  guard, 
(guarda  mayor},  with  the  proper  officers. 

During  the  rule  of  Flores,  the  consulado  of  Mexico  was  given 
charge  of  the  execution  of  this  work,  and  the  regent  of  the 
audiencia  was  commissioned  to  examine  it  and  report  on  what 
had  been  done.28  The  home  government  now  took  an  active 
interest  in  the  matter,  so  that  the  governor  henceforth  could  do 
little  more  than  offer  advice  and  keep  an  eye  on  the  consulado.29 
In  a  sense,  however,  the  governor  was  never  free  from  worry  and 
responsibility  growing  out  of  the  fear  of  an  inundation,  and  the 
canal  of  Huehuetoca  must  be  regarded  as  an  expensive  make- 
shift, imperfectly  doing  the  work  expected  of  it  till  the  proper 
solution  was  arrived  at  in  the  time  of  Diaz.  It  is  not  easy  to 
think  of  the  land  of  Mexico  as  peculiarly  adapted  to  internal 
water  communications,  but  in  1794  we  find  a  viceroy  saying  that 
"much  more  advantageous  than  the  roads,  would  be  the  construc- 


27  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  255.    The  drainage  of  the  Valley  of  Mexico  was 
carried  in  a  northeasterly  direction  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  by  way  of  the 
Tula  and  Tampico  rivers. 

28  IUd.,  art.  256. 

2»  The  consulado  of  Mexico  was  created  in  the  sixteenth  century  on 
the  model  of  institutions  of  the  same  name  in  various  cities  of  Spain, 
notably  after  that  of  Seville.  These  consulados  were  designed  to  fur- 
ther trade  and  industry  and  to  assist  in  the  administration  of  the  com- 
mercial law  of  the  country.  They  were  at  once  chambers  of  commerce, 
admiralty  courts,  banks,  and  business  corporations.  A  large  number  of 
new  ones  were  established  and  several  of  the  old  ones  given  new  char- 
ters during  the  latter  half  of  the  reign  of  Charles  III,  and  they  formed 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  a  new  commercial  system  put  into  force  at  that 
time.  They  were  ruined  by  their  large  advances  of  money  to  the  crown 
during  the  Napoleonic  wars. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  Xew  Spain  169 

tion  of  canals,  or  rendering  navigable  certain  rivers,  which  could 
be  accomplished  at  slight  cost."3*  It  was  believed  that, 
with  very  little  expense,  a  large  part  of  the  viceroyalty,  to 
the  sonth  and  southeast  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  eonld  be  made 
tributary  to  the  port  of  Vera  Cruz  by  means  of  internal  water- 
ways.31 In  May,  1790.  the  director  of  engineers,  Miguel  del  Cor- 
ral, submitted  plans  for  such  an  undertaking  in  pursuance  of 
an  order  to  that  effect  given  him  by  Revilla  Gigedo.  In  spite  of 
the  comparatively  low  cost  of  this  and  similar  undertakings,  the 
drain  upon  the  Mexican  finances,  caused  by  the  remission  of  funds 
to  Spain,  and  the  confusion  brought  about  by  foreign  war,  pre- 
vented anything  very  effective  being  done.32 

Although  little  was  actually  accomplished  along  these  lines, 
it  is  interesting  to  see  what  attention  the  Mexican  governors  were 
bestowing  upon  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  internal  improve- 
ments. There  seems  to  have  been  nothing  comparable  to  this 
anywhere  among  the  English  North  American  colonies.  Enough 
was  done  by  the  Mexican  governors  to  illustrate  on  a  modest  scale 
the  workings  of  an  enlightened  despotism  in  a  Spanish  depend- 
ency. It  was  proposed  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  location  of 
the  City  of  Mexico  at  the  hydrographical  center  of  the  vice- 
royalty.33  Though  the  rivers  were  not  large,  they  flowed  in  all 
directions  from  the  central  plateau  down  to  the  two  coasts,  and 
it  was  proposed  to  utilize  them  to  convert  the  capital  city  into 
a  common  center  of  all  the  trade  routes  crossing  the  country, 
whether  by  land  or  water.  It  was  realized  that  neither  the  popu- 
lation nor  the  trade  at  that  time  justified  the  immediate  carry- 
ing into  effect  of  all  these  projects,  but  the  attempt  to  formulate 
scientific  plans  for  the  carrying  through  of  these  internal  im- 
provements as  times  and  conditions  justified  them,  reflects  the 
highest  credit  on  the  Spanish  rule.  According  to  the  viceroy- 


3«Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  199. 

3i  Ibid.,  art.  200.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  one  contemplated  at 
this  time  the  building  of  a  great  road  over  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec 
or  of  constructing  an  interoceanic  canal. 

« Ibid.,  art.  205. 

33 Ibid.,  art.  202. 


170          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

governor  who  ruled  from  1789  to  1794,34  "It  was  most  neces- 
sary for  works  of  this  and  other  kinds,  and  to  carry  them  through 
with  complete  information,  that  there  be  engineers  in  these  dom- 
inions for  that  particular  object.  With  this  in  mind  I  asked 
that  there  be  sent  over,  knowing  this  lack,  two  engineers  of 
ability  and  industry  in  the  work,  to  prepare  a  topographical  map 
of  the  country. ' '  With  such  a  topographical  map  to  throw  light 
on  the  lay  of  the  land,  and  a  census  to  answer  a  similar  purpose 
for  the  population,  there  was  a  most  intelligent  beginning  for  all 
manner  of  political  and  economic  reforms. 

One  of  the  most  important  duties  of  the  governor  was  the 
general  care  and  supervision  of  the  public  health.  Even  with  the 
magnificent  climate  of  the  central  plateau  region,  there  prevailed 
over  the  whole  viceroyalty  a  high  death  rate  among  people  of 
European  birth..  Humboldt's  treatment  of  this  subject  was  so 
thorough  that  all  that  need  be  said  here  is  in  the  way  of  illus- 
tration of  the  viceroy's  political  activities.  The  unhealthfulness 
of  the  coast  regions,  not  only  around  Vera  Cruz  on  the  Gulf 
coast,  but  also  around  San  Bias  on  the  western  side,  was  pro- 
verbial, and  as  captain-general  the  viceroy  had  to  wrestle  with 
the  problem  of  keeping  the  health  of  the  troops  garrisoning  such 
places.  But  the  civil  population  of  the  country  was  also  exposed 
to  the  ravages  of  various  epidemics.35  One  of  the  causes  com- 
monly assigned  for  these  plagues  was  the  presence  of  cemeteries 
in  the  cities,  and  it  was  only  after  a  long  fight  that  the  governors 
succeeded  in  having  new  cemeteries  established  outside  the 
larger  centers  of  population.36 

s-t  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  206. 

35  Ibid.,  art.  241. 

36  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  City  of  Mexico  was  not  as  compactly 
built  and  crowded  as  most  European  cities  of  the  same  size,  there  were 
certain  conditions  adverse  to  public  health.     Physical  uncleanliness  was 
very  general,  and  Eevilla  Gigedo 's  description  of  what  was  visible  from 
the  palace  windows  (art.  244)  gives  an  idea  of  street  life.     The  lower 
classes  were  accustomed  to  go  about  with  little  or  no  clothing  except  one 
garment  which  answered  all  purposes.    The  employees  of  the  government 
were  forced  to  dress  properly,  and  in  one  year  ten  thousand  workmen  of 
the  tobacco  factory  and  other  government  shops  were  made  to  adopt  suit- 
able garments.     In  Vera  Cruz  the  problem  of  the  disposal  of  the  dead 
was  especially  acute.    Bevilla  Gigedo,  Feb.  9,  1792. 


Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  171 

It  is  not  easy  to  assign  the  exact  functions  of  taking  care  of 
the  public  health  to  the  different  officials  who  had  some  degree  of 
responsibility  for  it.  The  governor  had  the  leading,  though  not 
the  exclusive,  part  in  this  matter,  and  the  full  responsibility  was 
not  centered  in  any  one  office.  The  general  care  of  the  health 
of  the  troops  belonged  naturally  to  the  captain-general,  the 
management  of  many  of  the  hospitals  rested  finally  with  the 
archbishop,  while  in  financial  matters  and  the  providing  of  neces- 
sary revenues  the  intendants  had  an  important  share.  Such  a 
matter  as  the  providing  for  suitable  cemeteries,  referred  to  above, 
was  not  settled  without  reference  to  all  these  officials  and  some 
interference  from  the  home  government  in  addition. 

In  all  matters  relating  to  public  health  the  governor  was 
assisted  by  an  official  called  the  prolat=nudicato,  who  not  only 
concerned  himself  with  the  examining  and  licensing  of  physicians, 
but  also  occupied  a  position  not  unlike  that  of  a  modern  health 
officer.  The  relation  of  these  officials  one  to  another  may  per- 
haps be  best  exhibited  by  the  following  facts.  The  corregidor 
of  the  City  of  Mexico,  in  November,  1790,  reported  that  a  num- 
ber of  persons  had  died  of  tuberculosis  and  that  other  persons 
had  afterwards  worn  the  clothing  of  the  deceased.37  On  receiv- 
ing this  information  the  governor  summoned  the  proio-medicato 
to  assist  in  working  out  a  number  of  general  hygienic  rules  re- 
lating to  this  question.  Cases  of  violation  of  these  rules  were 
to  be  reported  by  physicians  and  other  persons  to  the  authori- 
ties of  the  city  and  suitable  penalties  were  to  be  imposed  upon 
the  offenders.  In  the  drafting  of  these  ordinances  the  governor 
was  represented  by  the  fiscal  de  lo  civil,  who  collaborated  with 
the  proto-medicato.3*  The  tit/orme,  or  report,  of  the  latter,  on 
being  approved  by  the  fiscal  and  finally  by  the  governor,  was  sent 
around  to  all  the  intendants  of  the  viceroyalty.  The  most  im- 
portant provisions  in  this  general  order  related  to  the  burning 
of  the  clothing  of  those  who  had  died  of  infectious  diseases  and 
the  fumigation  of  the  wards  in  the  hospitals  where  they  had 


Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  228. 
Ibid.,  art.  229  and  230. 


172  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

died.  In  a  similar  way  the  governor  and  the  proto-medicato  took 
other  measures  to  diminish  the  danger  of  epidemics,  and  pest- 
houses  or  lasaretos  were  established  in  the  places  where  they  were 
most  needed.39  Medical  men  were  encouraged  to  write  essays  on 
the  cure  of  the  most  dangerous  diseases40  and  the  beginning  was 
made  of  an  attempt  to  collect  and  tabulate  vital  statistics  with 
particular  reference  to  the  various  diseases  and  their  relative 
mortality.41  The  cleaning  of  the  streets  of  the  City  of  Mexico, 
the  disposal  of  filth  and  debris,  which  were  not  only  unsightly  but 
also  unhygienic,  also  required  the  attention  of  the  governor,  and 
were  regarded  as  important  enough  to  deserve  considerable  space 
in  the  instructions  Revilla  Gigedo  prepared  for  Branciforte  in 
1794.42 

Duties  like  these  just  mentioned  in  regard  to  the  public  health 
had  a  close  connection  with  the  more  general  problems  of  muni- 
cipal government,  and  lead  up  naturally  to  the  discussion  of  the 
duties  of  the  governor  as  head  of  the  administration  of  the  City 
of  Mexico.  The  governor  was  sometimes  the  corregidor  and  some- 
times there  was  a  separate  official  for  that  post,  but  at  all  times 
the  governor  was  responsible  in  a  general  way  for  the  government 
of  the  city.43  When  there  was  a  separate  corregidor  he  was 
directly  subordinate  to  the  governor,  and  so  it  was  a  comparatively 
unimportant  matter  whether  the  two  offices  were  single  or  com- 
bined. All  the  Mexican  municipalities  had  their  local  govern- 
ment, with  numerous  elective  officers  and  a  town  council, 
or  ayuntamiento,  but  these  local  officials  were  overshadowed  in 
the  capital  by  the  presence  of  the  viceroy. 

Reference  has  been  made  above  to  the  work  of  the  viceroys 
and  their  correspondence  with  Madrid  on  the  subject  of  paving 


3»  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  234. 

40  Ibid.,  art.  241.     Of  the  essays  submitted,  two  were  voted  acceptable, 
though  one  "was  very  diffuse  and  both  needed  considerable  corrections." 
41 Ibid.,  art.  238  and  239. 

42  Ibid.,  art.  245  and  246. 

43  The  opinion  stated  here  is  my  own,  and  is  an  inference  from  a 
large  number  of  facts  bearing  on  the  relation  of  the  governor  with  the 
corregidor.     I  never  have  seen  an  explicit  statement  that  the  corregidor 
was  actually  subject  to  the  governor. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  -Veir  Spain  173 

the  streets  of  Mexico  City  and  providing  for  suitable  drainage. 
These  and  other  activities,  which  in  a  modern  American  city 
would  be  performed  by  a  board  of  public  works,  were  not  merely 
referred  to  the  governor,  but  were  actually  initiated  by  him. 
As  was  shown  in  Chapter  n,  it  was  most  unusual  for  anything 
of  consequence  to  be  completed  without  the  interference  of  the 
home  government,  but  whatever  was  done  or  decided  in  America 
had  to  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  viceroy.  Without  going 
too  greatly  into  details,  mention  can  be  made  of  the  following 
measures  that  were  considered  important  during  the  first  years 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  IV. 

Before  1789,  very  little  had  been  done  toward  the  illumina- 
tion of  the  city  or  toward  making  effective  provisions  for  the 
protection  of  life  and  property.  In  1776,  proclamations  had 
been  issued  by  the  governor  on  the  subject  of  lighting  the  city 
streets,  and  in  1783  persons  with  property  were  ordered  to  keep 
their  houses  lighted,  as  were  also  those  in  charge  of  the  various 
public  buildings,  shops,  stores,  and  the  like.44  Three  years  later 
this  was  approved  by  a  royal  order,  but  a  year  after  there  was 
no  noticeable  improvement  and  so  the  viceroy  ordered  the  erection 
of  street  lamps  where  there  were  none  before.  Although  offenses 
against  these  ordinances  were  punishable  by  banishment,  nothing 
was  accomplished  by  them  up  to  the  year  1789.  Some  of  the 
wealthy  merchants  and  public  officials  did  their  share  by  lighting 
their  residences  and  offices,  but  something  more  drastic  was  re- 
quired to  secure  the  general  enforcement  of  the  law.*5  Instead, 
however,  of  continuing  this  attempt  to  force  property-owners  to 
illuminate  their  own  premises,  the  governor  had  recourse  to  the 
ayuntamitnto  to  furnish  revenue  for  a  system  of  street  lighting  at 
public  expense  and  administered  by  the  city.  The  new  system  was 
installed  at  a  cost  of  35,429  pesos,  and  with  an  annual  cost  of 
maintenance  of  24.440  pesos.  Revenue  for  this  was  found  by  an 


**  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  292.  The  lighting  of  the  streets  was  done  by 
means  of  oil  lamps.  A  month  was  given  to  the  inhabitants  to  comply 
with  the  law.  and  if  any  resisted  they  might  be  expelled  from  the  cuorteL 
The  enforcement  of  the  law  was  in  the  hands  of  the  alcalde  de  cuartel 
who  decided  how  each  person  was  to  pay. 

*5  Ibid.,  art.  293. 


174          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

octroi  tax  on  flour,46  approved  by  the  procurator-general  and  the 
sindico  and  still  later  by  the  fiscales  de  lo  civil  y  de  real  hacienda. 
The  final  approval  was  given  by  the  junta  de  propios,  or  coun- 
cil of  taxation,  October  15,  1790,  and  a  special  fund  for  this  pur- 
pose was  administered  separately. 

About  the  same  time  the  problem  of  fire  protection  for  the 
city  was  attacked  by  the  governor,  who,  in  September,  1790, 
had  fire-pumps  constructed  for  the  custom-house,  the  tobacco  fac- 
tory, and  other  important  places.47  Various  rules  for  the  fighting 
of  fires  and  the  safeguarding  of  the  property  rights  of  those  who 
suffered  directly  or  indirectly  by  them,  were  embodied  in  a  reg- 
lamento  of  twenty-eight  articles.48  A  few  years  later,  during  the 
rule  of  Viceroy  Marquina,  numerous  fires  and  the  problems 
resulting  from  them  attracted  the  attention  of  the  governor. 
Special  provision  was  made  for  the  appointment  of  a  certain 
judge  to  try  cases  growing  out  of  a  conflagration;  and  a  rule 
was  put  in  force  that  as  soon  as  the  fire-bell  rang  there  should 
assemble  at  the  palace  a  company  of  infantry  of  the  guard  regi- 
ment, so  that  in  such  a  time  of  confusion  there  might  be  special 
protection,  not  only  for  the  palace,  but  for  the  neighboring  public 
buildings.  In  addition,  a  subaltern  and  twenty  men  and  a  de- 
tachment from  the  dragoon  regiment  should  be  sent  to  the  scene 
of  the  fire  to  preserve  order  and  prevent  looting.49 

Because  of  the  irreparable  loss  that  might  very  well  be  occa- 
sioned by  a  great  fire  getting  beyond  control,  not  only  to  the  city 
proper,  but  to  the  general  government  of  New  Spain,  on  account 
of  the  presence  there  of  so  many  public  buildings,  it  is  not  a 
matter  for  surprise  that  the  governor  should  take  so  acute  an 
interest  in  the  protection  of  the  city  from  danger.  Nevertheless, 
many  matters  of  minor  detail  relating  purely  to  the  municipal 


•*«  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  294.  This  tax  on  flour  could  be  collected  at  the 
octroi  stations  at  the  same  time  the  alcabala  was  collected.  Moreover,  as  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  lived  upon  maize  instead  of  wheat  the  tax  did 
not  bear  especially  on  the  poor. 

47  Ibid.,  art.  298. 

« Ibid.,  art.  299. 

49  Marquina,  art.  87. 


Smith  :  TJte  Viceroy  of  A'eir  Spain  175 

government  were  not  settled  by  the  ayuntamifitto  bat  were 
solemnly  carried  up  to  the  chief  executive.  The  city  markets 
even  received  considerable  attention  from  Viceroy  Kevilla 
Gigedo.  He  complained  on  his  accession  to  power  that 
the  sale  of  food  stuffs  was  in  an  incredibly  disordered  state. 
Stalls  for  the  principal  markets  were  first  built,  and  then  the 
corregidor  was  instructed  to  draw  up  a  rtglamento  to  answer 
for  every  market  in  the  city.  The  duties  of  the  judge  of  the 
plazas,  juts  de  plazas,  usually  one  of  the  regidores.  were  defined, 
and  an  administrator  to  care  for  the  lighting;  and  cleaning  of 
the  public  squares  was  provided.5*  These  measures  not  only 
added  greatly  to  the  safety  and  sightliness  of  the  markets.51  but 
they  increased  the  city's  revenue,  as  the  persons  who  rented  the 
stalls  could  afford  to  pay  the  increased  rental  because  of  the 
greater  security  from  fire  and  robbery. 

In  the  same  way  as  the  policing  and  regulating  of  the  public 
markets  were  regarded  as  one  of  the  duties  of  the  governor,  the 
furnishing  of  the  city  with  an  adequate  supply  of  pure  water 
became  one  of  his  obligations.32  In  1789  the  arrangements  for 
piping  the  drinking  water  to  the  city  were  in  a  bad  way.  The 
pipes  were  nearly  ruined  and  the  wastefulness  of  those  who  had 
the  privileges  of  using  the  water  was  in  itself  a  great  eviL53 
Moreover.,  much  water  was  wasted  before  reaching  the  capital 
or  was  used  for  watering  gardens  and  other  purposes,  so  that 
not  only  were  great  quantities  of  water  diverted  from  their 
proper  use,,  but  even  the  streets  and  roads  were  at  times  flooded 
and  seriously  damaged.  In  order  to  remedy  all  this,  repairs  were 
made  in  the  various  conduits  and  a  couple  of  guards  were  ap- 
pointed to  patrol  the  aqueducts  so  as  to  warn  the  jvez  de  eanerias 
of  any  leaks  or  breakages.**  The  latter  official  was  expected  to 
prevent  individuals  from  taking  more  than  their  rightful  share 


*»Rerilla  Gigedo,  ait.  302.     "  ....  eon  el  anxflio  de  dos  Goardos 
Ministros  a  qmenes  se  senalo  «H  particular  uniform*  6  traje." 

» IfruL,  art.  303.    " el  boen  orden,  elaridad  j  segnridad." 

« IWdL,  art.  304. 

art-  305. 

ait.  306. 


176          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

of  the  water,  but  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  chief  offenders  were 
influential  persons,  "personas  mas  poderosas  y  respectables,"  it 
was  a  difficult  matter  to  enforce  the  various  ordinances.  It 
seemed  a  small  matter  for  the  governor  to  decide  whether  the 
pipes  should  be  laid  in  the  center  of  the  street  or  along  the  sides, 
and  whether  they  should  be  constructed  of  tiling  or  of  lead,  but 
these  matters  had  to  be  settled  by  him.  The  ten  public  fountains 
were  remodelled  in  order  to  secure  a  greater  economy  and  better 
protect  the  public  health.55 

Even  more  important  than  securing  the  city  against  the 
danger  of  fires  or  even  maintaining  a  good  water  supply,  was 
the  duty  of  providing  against  famines.56  For  a  great  many  years 
it  had  been  the  duty  of  the  authorities  to  supervise  the  furnish- 
ing of  the  city  with  its  supply  of  grain  and  meat,57  and  the 
policy  of  maintaining  large  reserves  of  grain  and  flour  as  a 
protection  against  lean  years  had  become  permanent.58  The  pub- 
lic granaries,  alhondigas  or  positos,  were  receptacles  for  storing 
the  grain,  but  in  furnishing  bread  to  the  populace  use  was  made 
of  a  guild  or  corporation  of  bakers.  A  succinct  and  authoritative 
statement  regarding  this  organization  was  given  by  Viceroy 
Marquina  in  1803.  "The  purveyance  of  bread  to  this  very 
numerous  population  may  be  said  to  be  a  monopoly  here.  It  does 
not  follow  the  ordinary  rules  of  freedom  of  sale.  It  is  confined 
to  a  guild,  called  that  of  the  bakers,  which  forms  a  body  or  organ- 
ization, and  has  the  duty  of  supplying  this  food  of  primal  neces- 
sity. On  some  occasions  it  has  been  questioned  if  it  would  not 
be  more  convenient  if  there  were  no  such  guild,  nor  any  special 
number,  as  there  are,  of  bakeries ;  but  without  doubt  there  would 
have  been  insuperable  difficulties  in  doing  without  them  and  I 
am  convinced  that  it  has  always  eliminated  the  risk  of  any 
failure  of  the  bread-supply,  which  would  be  most  serious  in  a 
populous  city,  if  the  sale  of  bread  were  left  free,  and  there  were 


ss  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  307. 

66  md.,  art.  308. 

6T  Revilla  Gigedo,  the  Elder,  art.  82. 

58  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  310. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  177 

any  failure  to  furnish  enough  to  prevent  such  a  f earful  result  and 
its  consequences."5"  The  difficulties  of  administering  this  branch 
of  the  government  were  increased  by  the  general  confusion  of  the 
business  world  resulting  from  the  revolutionary  and  Napoleonic 
wars.60  In  February,  1797,  the  crown  ordered  that  the  various 
ordinances  for  the  positos  of  Spain  be  made  the  basis  of  the 
regulations  for  those  of  Mexico  and  the  matter  was  submitted  to 
a  junta  to  be  put  into  shape,  but  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
Viceroy  Marquina  no  progress  was  made.  The  physical  difficul- 
ties of  collecting  the  grain  in  the  big  cities  were  considerable, 
and  the  financing  of  the  alhondigas  was  full  of  complexities. 
The  millers  combined  to  force  the  bakers  to  pay  a  high  price  for 
flour,  and  in  the  contest  which  grew  out  of  this,  appeal  was  taken 
to  the  governor.  The  latter  interfered  to  keep  down  the  price 
of  bread,  and  forbade  the  millers  to  deal  in  grain  and  force  up  its 
price  or  to  do  anything  but  manufacture  flour.*1 

The  complexity  of  these  problems  would  seem  to  forbid  the 
governor's  taking  care  of  them  intelligently,  but  he  was  expected 
to  keep  a  firm  hand  on  all  these  regulations,  controversies,  and 
decisions  affecting  public  policy.62  He  was  expected  to  be  inter- 
ested in  such  questions  as  whether  it  would  be  better  to  manu- 
facture a  new  kind  of  bread,  "medio  entre  eomun  y  pan  bazo;" 
to  prevent  frauds  on  the  part  of  these  various  guilds ;  and  to  keep 
an  eye  on  the  various  public  improvements  of  the  city  as  welL  He 
was  expected  to  study  the  problem  of  the  fluctuations  in  the  prices 
of  grain,  anticipate  shortages  in  the  crops,  and  buy  for  the  state 
when  the  market  was  most  favorable."  AH  this  presupposes  a 
superhuman  talent  and  activity  on  the  part  of  the  governor,  who, 


»»  Marquina,  art.  80. 

•°  Ibid.,  art.  82.  Marquina  declares  that  a  combination  of  the  millers 
and  bakers  could  fix  the  price  of  bread  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
public  and  so  constitute  a  dangerous  monopoly. 

«i  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  316. 

« Ibid.,  art.  323.  It  was  evidently  the  opinion  of  this  viceroy  that  the 
business  of  furnishing  flour  and  bread  should  not  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
corporations  (gremios).  If  it  were  thrown  open  without  restriction  to  gen- 
eral competition,  persons  of  small  capital  would  be  encouraged  to  enter 
the  field. 

**Ibid.,  art.  319. 


178          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

besides  other  inevitable  disqualifications  due  to  overwork  and 
lack  of  training  for  the  position,  was  always  a  foreigner  and 
therefore  more  or  less  ignorant  of  local  conditions. 

One  of  the  chief  branches  of  the  administration  of  the  public 
food  supply  was  that  relating  to  meat,  or  abasto  de  earned    It 
was  customary  in  Mexico  for  the  larger  towns  and  cities  to  grant 
the  monopoly  of  furnishing  the  cities  with  meat  to  some  person  or 
group  of  persons,  because  it  was  generally  believed  that  so  much 
capital  was  required  for  the  proper  conduct  of  so  large  a  busi- 
ness that  it  could  not  be  left  to  private  enterprise  and  competi- 
tion among  a  number  of  small  dealers.65    The  meat  supply  had 
to  come  from  a  considerable  distance  and  the  cities  had  very  gen- 
erally alienated  their  public  lands  so  that  they  could  not  raise 
their  own  animals  for  slaughter.    The  contract  for  this  monopoly 
was  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  by  judicial  auction.    This  contract 
had  to  be  submitted  to  the  viceregal  government  for  approval, 
though  apparently  the  governor  did  not  have  anything  else  to 
do  with  the  matter.     However,  when  Revilla  Gigedo  was  gov- 
ernor he  did  concern  himself  with  the  question  of  the  recovery 
of  the  land  rightfully  belonging  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  which 
had  been  usurped  by  private  individuals.    Likewise  it  had  long 
been  a  problem  for  the  governors  how  to  regulate  the  bull  fights, 
for  a  very  important  by-product  of  bull  fighting  was  the  cheap 
meat  afterwards  sold  to  the  poorest  consumers  of  animal  food.68 
It  would  not  be  worth  while  to  enumerate  further  the  mis- 
cellaneous occupations  which  were  forced  upon  the  governor  as  a 
result  of  his  being  the  virtual  head  of  the  government  of  the 
City  of  Mexico.    It  is  enough  to  say  that  practically  all  the  ac- 
tivities which  we  now  associate  with  a  modern  municipality  and 
which  are  distributed  among  a  great  number  of  different  officials 
and  boards,  had  some  connection  with  the  office  of  the  governor. 

e*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  the  Elder,  art.  12. 
65  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  325  and  326. 

of  t'L^TarV4'    ,HerS  I8  t0  be  f°Und  an  exPress  condemnation 
bull  fights.     He  refused  to  permit  such  a  way  of  celebrating  his 

mor« Y     ?rei  bfause',  among  other  things>  "of  the  injuries  both 
most  vigUan't ca?e."          ^^  ^^  **  bU"  fights>  in  SPite  of  the 


Smiik:  The  Viceroy  of  -Veir  Spam  179 

The  laying  oat  of  streets  and  boulevards,  improving  the  general 
plan  of  the  city  and  increasing  its  regularity  in  outline,  con- 
structing aqueducts,  fighting  the  contraband  trade,  improving 
primary  education,*7  and  seeking  to  improve  the  lot  of  the 
workingman,  were  all  part  of  the  governor's  business,  as  well 
as  scores  of  duties  not  mentioned  here.  The  amount  of  attention 
bestowed  on  these  matters  by  the  different  governors  depended 
very  largely  on  the  vigor  and  personality  of  the  man.  as  well  as 
upon  the  pressure  of  outside  circumstances  such  as  foreign  wars 
and  the  amount  of  interference  from  the  home  government. 

From  the  well-known  propensities  of  the  Spaniard  toward 
paternalism,  there  need  be  no  surprise  that  the  governor  was 
to  look  after  the  morals  of  the  people  within  his  jurisdiction. 
About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  population  of 
the  vieeroyalty  was  described  as  forming  two  general  classes,  one 
of  the  nobility  and  gentry,  of  white  color,  called  by  the  elder 
Re  villa  nobles  or  patricians,  and  the  other,  made  up  of  all  the 
various  inferior  mixed  breeds,  called  the  plebeians.**  The  former 
were  grateful  to  the  mother  country  for  all  the  advantages  they 
had  received,  past  and  present,  and  were  actuated  by  a  deep 
loyalty  to  the  crown.  The  latter,  divided  into  various  castes, 
were  poor,  vicious,  and  for  lack  of  anything  to  do,  much  given  to 
laziness.  The  same  authority  tells  us  that  the  nobility  were 
docile  and  submissive,  and  easy  to  govern  "eon  la  suavidad."** 
while  the  "plebs"  were  so  "vicious  and  cowardly"  that  only  a  few 
soldiers  were  necessary  to  keep  them  in  order  and  restrain  their 
excesses.  The  chief  protection  against  the  vulgar  mob  was  to  be 
found  in  its  condition  of  disunion.7*  It  looked  to  the  govern- 
ment for  an  ample  and  cheap  supply  of  corn  and  meat,  with  boll 
fights  for  the  chief  amusement,  pattern  et  drcemses.  Next  to  the 
wide  prevalence  of  IM™«  came  theft  and  drunkenness  as  the 
vicios  dominant (s  of  the  common  people.  The  governors  were 
therefore  obliged  to  wage  a  constant  war  against  highway  rob- 

r.  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  335. 

«e  fieri]]*  Gigedo,  the  Elder,  an    I 

w/fruL,  art.  5. 

*• /ML,  art.  10. 


180  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

bery  and  thieving  in  its  various  forms,  invoking  the  aid  of  the 
Santa  Hermandad  with  its  star  chamber  procedure.71 

The  increase  of  drunkenness  and  the  failure  of  the  ordinary 
preventives  brought  that  evil  to  the  particular  attention  of 
the  viceroys  and  governors.72  Owing  to  the  ease  with  which 
chinguerito  could  be  manufactured  and  the  lack  of  other  employ- 
ment for  so  many  people,  the  secret  and  illicit  manufacture  of 
spirituous  liquors  had  grown  to  be  a  great  evil.  Laws  and 
proclamations  were  directed  against  the  sale  and  manufacture 
of  the  native  brandy,  but  apparently  without  result.  Even  a 
more  potent  cause  of  intoxication  was  the  native  wine,  or  pulque, 
which  was  not  forbidden  by  law  but  was  even  approved  of  as  a 
medicine.73  The  elder  Revilla  Gigedo  complained  that  the  natives 
spent  more  on  this  beverage  than  on  food  stuffs  and  clothing. 
Commissions  were  appointed  to  cope  with  the  chinguerito  evil 
while  a  like  means  was  adopted  to  limit  and  regulate  the  pulque 
traffic.74  One  governor  ordered  the  places  where  alcoholic  liquors 
from  Castile  were  sold,  to  be  closed  at  nine  o'clock  at  night,  while 
extra  efforts  were  made  to  punish  with  severity  the  distillers  of 
chinguerito.''6  A  more  rigid  inspection  of  the  pulquerias  was 
undertaken  with  the  same  general  object  in  view,  and  judges 
and  other  officials  were  admonished  to  exert  themselves  to  en- 
force the  law.76 


71  Kevilla  Gigedo  the  Elder,  art.  14. 

72  Ibid.,  art.  15.     As  late  as  1791  the  problem  of  the  control  of  the 
manufacture  of  spirituous  liquors  was  a  pressing  one.     Eevilla   Gigedo 
to  the  Conde  de  Lerene,  Sept.  26,  1791. 

73  Jbid.,  art.  16. 
74/fttd.,  art.  19. 
75  Ibid.,  art.  21. 

7«  Ibid.,  art.  355-362.  In  these  articles  the  viceroy  discussed  the  evils 
growing  out  of  the  liquor  business  in  a  way  which  reminds  one  of  the 
later  attempts  at  regulation  and  prohibition  in  the  United  States.  Com- 
plaints had  reached  the  king  in  Spain  regarding  the  bad  influence  of  the 
retail  liquor  business,  and  the  royal  order,  March  18,  1778,  directed  that 
everything  possible  be  done  to  remedy  them.  The  alcaldes  were  ordered 
to  make  frequent  visits  to  the  pulquerias  and  to  take  such  measures  as 
"their  zeal  dictated."  A  junta,  composed  of  the  archbishop,  the  regent 
of  the  audiencia,  the  senior  fiscal,  and  the  superintendent  of  the  custom 
house,  was  appointed  to  meet  with  the  governor  to  devise  remedies  for 
the  saloon  evil.  Laws  against  drunkenness  were  issued  and  the  pulquerias 
were  limited  to  the  sale  of  pulque  and  were  not  allowed  to  furnish  pro- 
visions and  other  accessories. 


S i-  •: :  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  Nem  Spain  181 

The  attack  which  the  governors  were  expected  to  lead  on 
popular  vices  was  not  confined  to  the  liquor  traffic.  A  number  of 
games  of  chance  came  under  the  ban  of  the  law  and  some  at- 
tempt was  made  to  restrict  them.  The  same  cannot  be  said  of  the 
social  evil,  toward  which  the  governors  maintained  an  attitude 
of  frigid  tolerance.  In  1775  the  viceroy  wrote,  "Secret  incon- 
tinence, here  and  in  all  the  world,  is  not  to  be  remedied  entirely, 
and  prudent  governors  content  themselves  with  avoiding  pub- 
licity, as  I  have  done  in  my  time,  famishing  and  punishing  those 
worst  courtesans  who  give  public  seandaLm"*  Stricter  rules  were 
also  drawn  up  at  about  the  same  time  to  limit  the  excesses  in 
the  Paseo  de  Jamaica,  and  a  company  of  cavalry  from  the  palace 
guard  was  assigned  the  duty  of  patrolling  the  slum  district  at 
night.  These  facts  point  quite  clearly  to  the  generally  unrecog- 
nized truth  that  the  Spanish  rulers  in  New  Spain  were  by  no 
means  indifferent  to  the  moral  well-being  of  their  subjects,  how- 
ever crude  their  measures  may  seem  at  the  present  day. 

The  various  evils  referred  to  above  could  not  be  dealt  with 
adequately  by  the  governors  without  reference  to  the  question 
of  immigration.  It  seemed  to  be  a  very  general  belief  among  the 
viceroys  of  the  later  days  of  Spanish  rule  that  a  great  many  of 
the  ills  afflicting  society  sprang  from  an  influx  of  foreigners  and 
that  a  more  careful  enforcement  of  the  laws  against  the  undesir- 
able immigrant  was  necessary.  Among  the  most  explicit  declara- 
tions to  be  found  in  the  primary  material  is  that  of  Viceroy \ 
Marquina,  written  in  the  year  1803.  He  wrote  in  his  instruction 
to  Itnrrigay,  that  when  he  first  began  to  inform  himself  about 
America,  he  became  persuaded  that  the  laws  of  the  Indies  in 
regard  to  persons  from  Europe  being  admitted  to  the  colonies 
ought  to  be  put  into  force  rigorously  ;TT  and  that  this  should 
apply  not  only  to  foreigners,  but  to  those  Spaniards  who  had  se- 
cured passports  or  licenses.  During  his  incumbency  he  became 
aware  of  the  presence  of  foreigners  by  seeing  them  on  the  streets  of 
the  capital,  and  became  more  and  more  convinced  that  there  was  a 


ait.  24. 
Maiqmna,  art.  66. 


University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

clanger  lurking  in  this  non-observance  of  the  laws.78    Strict  orders 
were  thereupon  sent  to  the  governor  of  Vera  Cruz,  reminding 
him  of  his  duties  in  this  matter,  and  ordering  him  to  make  every 
possible  effort  to  check  the  ingress  of  all  Europeans,  particularly 
those  coming  from  other  countries  than  Spain.79     Those  who 
were  to  be  admitted  were  to  show  whence  they  came,  the  motive 
of  their  coming,  and  the  proper  documents  authorizing  their  voy- 
age.   Additional  orders  were  sent  to  the  judicial  officers  of  the 
cities  between  Vera  Cruz  and  the  City  of  Mexico  to  insist  that 
all  travelers  from  Vera  Cruz  produce  passports  from  the  gov- 
ernor of  that  place.80    The  alcaldes  of  the  capital  were  likewise 
commanded  to  cooperate  in  running  down  unauthorized  persons.81 
Of  like  import  were  the  remarks  of  Viceroy  Branciforte  to  his 
successor  Azanza,  in  1798,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  these 
efforts  at  restriction  were  very  successful.82    They  are  mentioned 
here,  however,  rather  as  illustrations  of  the  duties  of  the  gov- 
ernor and  of  the  matters  of  state  policy  which  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Spanish  colonial  rulers.83 

Although  the  organization  of  charity  and  poor  relief  in 
Mexico  during  the  Spanish  regime  was  mainly  in  the  hands  of 
the  church,  there  were  certain  aspects  of  it  which  could  not  be 
ignored  by  the  state.84  There  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the  inter- 
est taken  in  this  matter  by  the  governor,  derived  from  the 
reglamentos  and  instrucciones  of  the  viceroys,  so  that  a  few  words 
are  due  the  subject  in  this  study.  The  question  of  poor  relief 
is  always  as  much  a  matter  for  statesmen  as  for  philanthropists, 
and  m  Mexico  especially  the  question  was  inseparable  from  the 
larger  problem  of  keeping  the  masses  in  good  order  and  pro- 
78Marquina,  art.  67. 

their  revolutionary  writings  from  Mexico. 

80  Ibid.,  art.  69. 

81  Ibid.,  art.  70. 

82  Ibid.,  art.  71. 

83  Branciforte,  art.  11. 
84Marquina,  art.  104. 


Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  Xeic  Spain  183 

ductively  employed.  In  every  large  city  there  was  a  kospicio 
de  pob'rcs,  or  pool-house,  but  the  one  in  the  City  of  Mexico  was, 
of  course,  the  most  important.  As  one  of  the  viceroys  said,  "The 
poorhonse  might  very  well  be  a  seminary  where  many  useful 
trades  and  occupations  might  be  learned;  ...."'  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  there  was  not  enough  money  available  to  hire  suitable 
teachers  or  to  give  the  proper  material  equipment.85  In  1791, 
there  were  seven  hundred  and  fifty  inmates  and  the  income 
derived  from  taxes  and  gifts  amounted  to  twenty  thousand  pesos. 
Much  of  the  work  done  in  the  institution  was  of  an  inferior  kind 
and  almost  worthless  because  of  the  ignorance  or  physical  weak- 
ness of  many  of  the  inmates.  Nevertheless,  it  kept  a  certain 
number  of  people  off  the  streets  though  it  was  not  large  enough 
to  solve  the  problem  of  mendicity  even  in  the  capital,  and  affairs 
were  not  so  promising  in  the  provincial  towns.**  The  poorhonse 
of  the  City  of  Mexico  was  in  charge  of  a  director,  who  was  sub- 
ordinate to  a  committee  composed  of  the  archbishop,  the  regent 
of  the  audiencia.  the  dean  of  the  university,  two  regidores  of  the 
ayuntemtcmto,  the  prior  of  the  constdado,  and  the  director  of 
the  poorhonse.  The  procurator  and  the  syndic  were  honorary 
members  without  vote,  and  the  corregidor  had  no  connection 
whatever  with  the  institution.*7  With  a  little  better  manage- 
ment and  more  revenue,  this  kospicio  de  pobres  might  have  been 
the  place  to  which  the  children  of  the  foundling  asylum  were 
transferred  on  reaching  the  proper  age.*8  The  casa  de  expositos, 
or  foundling  asylum  was  entirely  independent  of  the  governor 
and  was  managed  by  a  committee  selected  from  the  body  of  its 
supporters,  the  Congregation  of  Charity.  These  two  charities 
were  the  ones  which  came  most  under  the  notice  of  the  civil 
power  and  so  indirectly  to  the  attention  of  the  governor,  but 
neither  was  in  any  sense  administered  by  him. 

One  of  the  institutions  of  New  Spain  for  which  there  is 
scarcely  a  parallel  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  time  was 


**  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  350. 
**  Marqnin*,  art.  105-106. 
«•  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  351. 
"IfrtdL,  art.  352. 


184          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

the  montepio.  The  mojaJ&pj^militar,  which  will  be  described 
in  chapter  iv,  was  exclusively  for  officers  in  the  army,  while  the 
montepio  de  oficinas  was  for  the  benefit  of  the  officials  in  the 
civil  administration.  A  royal  decree  of  May  10,  1776,  ordered 
the  governor  of  Mexico  to  report  on  the  desirability  of  such  an 
institution,  its  objects  being  similar  to  those  of  a  modern  mutual 
life-insurance  company.89  The  report  was  favorable  to  such  an 
institution,  and  the  royal  assent  was  given  February  18,  1784.90 
Persons  holding  royal  commissions  with  salaries  above  four  hun- 
dred pesos  a  year  were  admitted.91  The  organization  was  per- 
fected and  dated  its  official  beginning  July  1,  1784.  Its  officials 
were  an  accountant,  a  secretary,  a  treasurer,  an  usher,  and  two 
other  officials.92  The  beneficiaries  were  the  widows  and  the 
orphans  of  the  deceased,  who  received  one-fourth  of  the 
salary  of  the  deceased  at  the  time  of  his  death.93  The  chief 
officials  were  nominated  by  the  viceroy,  who  apportioned  them 
among  the  representatives  of  the  various  government  offices.94 
A  similar  institution  was  organized  for  the  benefit  of  the  higher 
officials  of  the  financial  department,  and  bore  the  name  of  the 
montepio  de  ministros.96  This  was  organized  in  June,  1785,  and 
its  general  government  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  montepio  de 
oficinas.  Still  another  form  of  montepio  was  organized  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1775,  and  was  under  the  immediate  protection  of  the 
viceroy.  The  official  title  was  monte  de  piedad  de  dnimas,  and  its 
governing  body  was  appointed  by  the  governor.96  It  was  an 
out-and-out  charity  institution  and  so  differed  somewhat  from 
the  other  forms  of  montepios.  It  was  founded  as  the  result  of  a 
gift  of  three  hundred  thousand  pesos  by  the  Conde  de  Regla, 
for  the  purpose  of  lending  money  on  personal  property  such  as 


8»  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  1385. 

»o  Ibid.,  art.  1386. 

»i  Ibid.,  art.  1387. 

92  Ibid.,  art.  1388. 

»s  Ibid.,  art.  1389. 

»4  Ibid.,  art.  1390. 

95  Ibid.,  art.  1392. 

96  Ibid.,  art.  1407. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spam  185 

furniture,  clothing,  and  other  articles  now  commonly  found  in 
a  pawn-shop.*7  This  monte  de  pit  dad  did  a  tremendous  busi- 
ness and  has  remained  till  modern  times  one  of  the  great 
curiosities  of  the  City  of  Mexico. 

Among  the  many  institutions  introduced  into  Mexico  from 
Spain,  there  was  none  more  characteristic  than  the  consulado. 
The  tribunal  of  the  consulado  became  the  great  law  court  of  the 
country  for  the  decision  of  all  suits  growing  out  of  trade  and 
trade  relations,  or,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  viceroys,  "between 
merchants  on  account  of  merchandise. '  ***  The  consulado  of  Mexico 
was  modelled  on  that  of  the  city  of  Seville,"  and  its  prior  and 
two  consuls  constituted  the  court  of  original  jurisdiction  in  mer- 
cantile eases.100  It  had  its  court  of  appeals  and  legal  counsels, 
asesores,  the  hitter  receiving  a  considerable  salary.  The  great 
criticism  of  the  consulado  was  that  it  held  its  sessions  only  at 
the  capital  city,  which  caused  obvious  disadvantages  to  the  mer- 
chants living  at  a  distance.101  Moreover,  the  consulado  strove 
for  the  commercial  advantage  of  the  City  of  Mexico  to  the  detri- 
ment of  other  cities  in  the  country,  as  in  the  case  of  the  alcavala 
tax.  which  it  sought  to  have  reduced  for  Mexico  but  increased 
in  Vera  Cruz.  It  was  also  true  that  the  tribunal  of  the  con- 
svlado  was  less  needed  in  the  capital  than  in  almost  any  other 
part  of  the  country,  because  of  the  presence  there  of  a  great 
number  of  other  high  courts.  These  objections  induced  the 
younger  Revilla  Gigedo  to  recommend  either  the  complete  aboli- 
tion of  the  consulado,  or  the  establishment  of  one  in  every  large 
city.  The  only  advantage  of  having  the  consulado  in  the  capital 
was  the  convenience,  not  to  say  necessity,  to  the  government  in 
carrying  on  certain  public  works  like  the  canal  of  Huehuetoea.10* 

The  large  revenue  which  the  consulado  enjoyed  was  derived 
chiefly  from  an  impost,  arena,  on  all  goods  passing  through  the 


*T  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  1408. 
»«/WdL,  art.  111. 
art.  461. 
art.  462. 
Ibid.,  art.  463. 
IfcwL,  art.  464. 


186          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

custom-houses  of  Vera  Cruz  and  Mexico.  This  impost  tended 
to  become  higher  till  it  reached  one  and  one-half  per  cent,  and 
was  paid  by  the  consumer  in  the  enhanced  selling  price  of  the 
goods.  With  these  revenues  the  consulado  became  the  great  fin- 
ancial institution  of  the  country,  and  in  the  absence  of  banks 
afforded  to  the  government  a  most  convenient  means  of  tapping 
the  national  wealth.  It  financed  great  public  undertakings, 
maintained  a  regiment  of  militia,  and  lent  money  to  the  king. 
These  extra-commercial  activities  alone  were  sufficient  in  import- 
ance to  make  it  one  of  the  great  agencies  for  the  government  of 
the  viceroyalty,  and  justify  its  mention  in  this  place  in  a  study 
of  the  viceroy  as  governor. 

Of  much  less  interest  to  the  general  historian,  though  import- 
ant enough  in  the  social  and  industrial  organization  of  society 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  were  the  various  craft  guilds.  The 
viceroy-governor  in  1794  held  a  rather  low  opinion  of  the  work- 
men and  trades-unions  of  Mexico.  'This  was  partly  attributable 
to  the  lack  of  education  of  the  laborers,  but  was  also  due  to  the 
organizations  of  the  workingmen.103  The  capital  had  fifty  dif- 
ferent gremios,  each  with  its  own  constitution,  in  the  majority 
of  cases  dating  from  the  previous  century.104  They  tended  to 
monopolize  the  various  branches  of  industry  and  in  the  main  did 
nothing  to  advance  the  arts.105  The  viceroy  recommended  the 
suppression  of  some  of  these  unions,  but  it  is  notable  that  he 
approved  of  retaining  others  as  the  best  means  of  maintaining 
the  proper  relations  between  the  masters,  the  journeymen,  and 
the  apprentices.106 

There  is  no  part  of  the  government  of  New  Spain  which  has 
been  so  inadequately  explained  or  so  generally  neglected  by 
the  secondary  historians  as  that  which  pertained  to  the  secre- 
tariat of  the  viceroy.107  The  Secretaria  de  Cdmara  del  Virreynato, 


los  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  337. 

104  Ibid.,  art.  338. 

105  Ibid.,  art.  339. 

loe  Ibid.,  art.  341.  This  governor  thought  that  it  was  footless  for 
the  gremios  to  attempt  to  prescribe  the  sizes  and  designs  of  the  fabrics 
they  turned  out. 

IOT  Eevilla  Gigedo  to  the  Conde  de  Lerene,  Oct.  29,  1791. 


1913]  Smith:  Tke  Viceroy  of  Aeic  Spot*  187 

as  it  was  referred  to  in  the  documents  of  the  time,  constituted 
a  most  important  part  of  the  government  mechanism.     It  was 
in  the  secretariat  that  a  great  many  of  the  details  of  actual 
administration  were  worked  out,  and  while  it  would  be  too  much 
to  say  that  the  members  of  this  official  body  formed  the  viceroy's 
cabinet,  it  may  be  said  that  they  formed  his  civil  staff.  This  body 
of  minor  but  extremely  useful  officials  appears  at  first  as  a  part 
of  a  great  bureaucracy,  but  if  this  be  true  it  is  only  so  in  a 
peculiar  sense  of  the  term.     A  modern  cabinet  officer  whose 
tenure  of  office  is  not  long,  is  regularly  dependent  upon  his  per- 
manent  under-secretaries   for   information   and   direction,   for 
everything  except  those  changes  in  policy  which  are  the  result  of 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  party  politics.    The  members  of  the  secre- 
tariat were  not  ordinarily  appointees  for  life  or  for  long  periods 
of  time  and  were  not  men  seeking  a  career  in  this  employment. 
They  were  not.  as  a  body,  men  of  more  than  mediocre  talent  and 
it  seems  that  their  importance  arose  from  their  part  in  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  details  of  exceedingly  complicated  administrative 
rules  which  no  one  above  them  in  rank  could,  or  eared  to.  master. 
Spanish  administrative  methods  have  ever  been  notorious  for 
a  cumbersome  procedure  resulting  from  an  endless  writing  and 
re-writing  of  rules  and  regulations  governing  the  minutest  details 
in  affairs  of  government.    On  its  good  side  these  practices  made 
for  orderliness,  pains-taking  methods,  definiteness.  and  a  full 
preservation  of  records.    It  was  in  its  very  nature  opposed  to 
what  is  careless,  and  slipshod,  and  indefinite.    In  the  hands  of 
the  average  official,  however,  it  proved  to  be  a  slow  and  unwieldly 
means  of  getting  things  done.     Masses  of  papers,  made  up  of 
reports,  opinions,  citations  of  previous  law  and  practice,  were 
likely  to  accumulate  to  such  an  extent  that  the  superior  official 
who  was  required  to  examine  them  in  order  to  reach  a  conclu- 
sion was  often  taxed  to  the  uttermost  in  his  attempt  to  master 
their  contents.     When  it  is  remembered  that  the  viceroys  were 
military  men  for  the  most  part  rnifamiliar  with,  the  law  and  civil 
procedure  and  were  almost  never  allowed  to  remain  in  office  long 
enough  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  its  duties,  it  is 


188          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

easy  to  understand  their  dependence  upon  the  members  of  the 
secretariat. 

Our  chief  sources  of  information  for  the  history  and  organiza- 
tion of  the  Mexican  Secretaria  del  Cdmara  are  the  reports  and 
correspondence  of  the  second  Revilla  Gigedo.  Soon  after  his 
entering  office  he  sought  to  improve  the  efficiency  of  his  sub- 
ordinates in  the  secretariat,  and  his  report  of  January  11,  1790, 
and  the  accompanying  reglamento  are  the  leading  documents  to 
be  consulted.  His  recommendations  were  never  more  than  par- 
tially adopted,  but  they  afford  an  admirable  view  of  the  prob- 
lems and  difficulties  which  this  ruler  had  to  meet.  He  begins 
his  report  to  Secretary  Valdez  with  a  pointed  reference  to  the 
"general  epidemic  of  ineptitude"  from  which  la  primera  oficina 
rel  reino  was  suffering,  and  he  added  a  statement  on  the  margin 
of  this  document  to  the  effect  that  the  secretary  then  serving  and 
his  predecessors  had  labored  to  remedy  the  evil  conditions  and 
without  result. 

It  seems  that  in  the  earliest  times  there  was  no  legal  pro- 
vision for  a  secretary  and  that  the  viceroys  supplied 
this  want  voluntarily  out  of  their  own  income.  The 
salary  was  1400  pesos  and  the  other  expenses  of  the 
office  were  met  out  of  the  revenue  accruing  from  vacan- 
cies in  certain  military  organizations.  This  meant  that  the 
pay  of  the  under-secretaries  and  copyists  was  extremely  small 
and  derived  from  an  uncertain  source.  As  the  salaries  were 
inadequate  the  officials  were  driven  to  increase  their  incomes  by 
means  at  once  illicit  and  undignified.  As  a  result  the  honor  and 
good  name  of  the  viceroys  as  well  as  the  public  service  were 
injured  and  even  state  secrets  were  occasionally  sold.  Another 
bad  feature  was  the  pernicious  rotation  in  office  which  every 
change  of  viceroy  brought  about.  The  chief  secretary  or  oficial 
mayor  was  expected  to  hold  office  indefinitely,  but  even  his  salary 
was  drawn  as  a  member  of  the  tribunal  of  accounts  (tribunal  de 
cuentas).  This  false  economy  led  to  inefficiency  because  the 
dependientes  were  not  only  underpaid  but  had  no  hope  of  pro- 
motion and  were  ever  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  they 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain,  189 

might  find  employment  elsewhere.    The  official  records  were  badly 
kept  and  the  central  archives  were  in  confusion. 

The  first  attempt  at  a  reorganization  of  the  secretariat  was 
made  in  the  first  year  of  the  rule  of  the  Marques  de  las 


in  1756.  The  new  arrangements  were  embodied  in  the  royal 
Cfdula  of  August  28,  1757,  whereby  three  salaried  positions  were 
created  drawing  1500,  1000,  and  500  pesos  respectively.  But 
already  these  new  provisions  were  inadequate.  The  constantly 
increasing  business  of  these  secretaries  due  to  the  increasing  mili- 
tary establishments,  the  administration  of  the  tobacco  monopoly, 
and  the  growing  complexity  of  other  departments  of  public 
finance  drove  the  later  viceroys  to  make  further  demands  for 
men  and  salaries.  The  Marques  de  Croix  succeeded  in  adding 
two  more  officials  to  this  department,  but  in  February,  1771,  the 
volume  of  business  had  so  outrun  the  office  force  that  the  same 
viceroy  was  again  begging  aid  from  the  home  government.  In 
January.  1772,  and  February,  1773,  the  new  viceroy,  Bucareli, 
renewed  the  demand  of  his  predecessor  for  a  further  increase  in 
the  personel  of  the  secretariat  which  resulted  in  the  second  re- 
eonstitution  of  that  department.  This  was  the  one  actually 
in  force  in  the  time  of  Revilla  Gigedo  and  was  based  upon  the 
royal  ctduJa  and  order  of  June  19,  1773.  This  royal  cldula 
provided  for  six  officials  with  salaries  ranging  from  2000  to  600 
pesos,  whose  duties  were  primarily  the  drafting  of  the  various 
kinds  of  documents  issued  from  that  office.  Provision  was  also 
made  for  an  archive  ro.  or  keeper  of  the  archives,  and  six  other 
functionaries  who  were  to  serve  without  pay  and  were  regularly 
referred  to  as  meritorios.  They  were  expected  to  have  some  in- 
dependent means  and  to  possess  the  character  and  talent  requisite 
to  promotion  and  regular  salary.  The  secretary,  the  six  officials, 
and  the  archivist  were  to  enjoy  such  advantages  as  exemption 
from  the  media  a  not  a  and  admission  to  the  monte  pfo  de  mm- 
istros. 

Some  further  modifications  in  the  direction  of  a  more  gen- 
erous treatment  of  this  office  were  secured  by  Bucareli  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1778.  Two  more  oficiales,  or  under-secretaries,  were 


190  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

granted,  together  with  two  copyists  and  a  porter.  There  were 
now  seventeen  employees  of  all  grades  subordinate  to  the  secre- 
tary. By  1790  this  number  had  increased  to  thirty,  and  it  had 
been  even  larger  for  a  while  under  Viceroy  Mayorga.  Though 
this  seems  a  considerable  advance  over  the  conditions  existing 
before  the  secretariat  was  organized  in  1757,  yet  matters  were 
in  a  very  unsatisfactory  condition,  as  Revilla  Gigedo  has  so 
clearly  set  forth.  This  viceroy  was  unwilling  to  continue  the 
employment  of  the  meritorios.  He  considered  them  satisfactory 
for  some  of  the  government  offices,  as  for  instance  in  the  secre- 
tariat of  the  bureau  of  accounts,  but  he  thought  they  ought  not 
to  be  entrusted  with  the  more  important  and  delicate  matters 
relating  to  the  viceroy 's  own  office. 

The  work  of  these  secretaries  or  clerks  required  not  only  a 
moderately  high  degree  of  intelligence  and  industry  but  a  special 
aptitude  for  finding  one's  way  about  in  the  mazes  of  previous 
legislation.  The  procedure  in  dealing  with  an  expedients  is 
described  by  Revilla  Gigedo  as  follows : 

This  minister,  either  because  he  has  not  the  necessary  information,  or 
because  he  wishes  to  protect  his  office,  asks  for  precedents,  or  else  he 
submits  a  report  or  instruction  to  other  tribunals,  magistrates  or  indi- 
viduals. These  reports  are  collected  in  the  archivo  de  secretaria,  where 
they  are  assembled  with  other  expedientes  which  are  already  in  the  same 
office  or  in  the  copy  rooms  of  the  Government,  where  they  have  or  have 
not  completed  their  various  processes,  and  in  this  manner,  months  or 
years  pass  by  before  they  return  to  the  Fiscal  (about  the  same  thing 
happening  with  the  other  informes).  Because  they  who  have  to  prepare 
these  informes  are  already  over-burdened  with  the  duties  of  their  respec- 
tive positions,  it  is  necessary  that  their  ordinary  work  be  neglected  as 
much  as  their  importance  will  permit,  and  also  the  additional  work  re- 
quired to  prepare  the  extra  reports  and  opinions. 

The  expediente  then  comes  back  to  the  fiscal  in  the  form  of  a  first  draft, 
or  as  a  problem  to  be  solved,  and  if  he  does  not  repeat  his  request,  for 
further  instruction,  with  the  delays  that  it  implies,  it  goes  to  the  asesor 
general  or  it  is  carried  to  the  Junta  Superior  de  B.  H.,  which  body  is  like- 
wise burdened  with  serious  problems  of  government  of  divers  character, 
and  as  this  body  meets  only  two  days  in  each  week,  this  work  progresses 
very  slowly. 

Finally  the  document  or  report  is  verified,  and  if  there  results  its 
acceptance  as  an  ad  interim  measure  it  incurs  the  new  delay  arising  from 
the  taking  of  testimony  and  ultimately  from  its  formulation  by  the 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  191 

secretariat  according  to  the  contents  of  those  documents,  letters  or  repre- 
sentations with  which  it  is  submitted  for  royal  consideration. 

These  delays  are  the  ordinary  ones  incident  to  a  clear  and  easy 
expedients,  for  when  difficulties  occur,  the  trials  of  the  procedure  are  mul- 
tiplied. Then  arise  in  the  midst  of  the  proceeding  new  and  perplexing 
points,  due  to  remanding  the  whole  question  to  some  other  department  for 
discussion,  with  the  result  that  interminable  debates  are  precipitated; 
confusion  is  produced  by  the  accumulation  of  useless  documents,  likewise 
by  the  complex  of  contradictory  opinions  which  cause  distrust  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  decision  which  have  been  arrived  at. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  important  matters  are  decided  without  the 
formalities  of  law,  royal  order,  ordinances,  or  reglamentot;  but  when 
these  laws  declare  and  determine  the  point  which  they  raise,  and  do  not 
prescribe  the  procedure  by  which  they  are  put  into  effect,  it  seems  to  me 
that  [these  formalities]  ought  to  be  waived  for  the  sake  of  the  quickest 
and  best  service  of  the  "K»"g  and  the  public  and  out  of  regard  for  the 
principal  office  of  the  realm,  the  laboratory  in  which  are  produced  the  laws 
which  govern  this  vast  empire,  binding  together  all  the  parts  which 
sustain  it. 

This  is  the  science  which  the  officials  and  the  secretariat  of  the  vice- 
royalties  ought  to  study  and  know.  But  how  can  they  master  it  when  all 
their  labors  are,  as  I  have  just  said,  arduous,  crude  and  tedious  f 

They  draw  up  the  first  accurate  copy  as  I  pointed  out  in  par.  25.  They 
repeat  the  same  labor  in  the  register  book  (there  is  a  tedious  number 
of  them)  relating  to  this  matter,  and  they  make  a  separate  copy  which 
they  take  to  each  magistrate  for  him  to  state  and  sign: — "received  the 
expedients,  marked  so  and  so,  No.  so  and  so,  Folio  so  and  so,"  and  in  the 
same  manner  the  oficial  de  la  mesa  writes:  ' '  reprinted  on  such  a  day,  and 
returned  on  such  a  day." 

The  preparation  of  these  abstracts  is  prolonged  as  a  result  of  the  in- 
volved procedure  of  the  expedients;  if  they  require  at  any  stage  of  their 
preparation,  orders  from  the  king,  or  viceroy  (ardent*  snperwres)  there 
are  inserted,  copied  or  abridged  (sometimes  badly)  the  petitions  or  de- 
cisions of  the  magistrates,  and  if  finally  the  report  is  made,  to  the  king, 
the  same  labor  is  repeated  in  the  accompanying  testimony,  which  at  times 
obscures  essential  points  or  confuses  everything  by  stupidly  ordered 
clauses  and  conditions.  As  a  result,  the  secretaries  and  ministers  of  state 
become  disgusted  and  are  obliged  to  ask  for  a  better  abstract  of  testi- 
mony, which  makes  a  new  operation  necessary,  postpones  royal  decisions 
or  suspends  them  because  of  the  obscurities  of  the  expedientes  and  of 
the  letters  themselves,  which  are  apt  to  end  without  any  enlightening 
suggestions.!** 

So  varied  were  the  duties  of  the  viceroy  as  governor  that  it 
seems  fntile  to  attempt  any  resume  of  them.  There  was  scarcely 


"»  Bevilla  Gigedo  to  Valdez,  Jan.  11,  1790. 


192          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

a  governmental  function  in  the  realm  of  civil  affairs  that  was  not 
in  a  measure  dependent  on  him  at  some  stage  of  its  operation. 
Though  some  of  the  viceroys  complained  of  the  diminution  of 
authority  which  their  office  had  suffered  in  its  later  years,  it  is 
hard  to  see  what  more  could  be  thrust  upon  their  time  and  atten- 
tion. They  still  had  extensive  judicial  powers  in  spite  of  the 
encroachments  of  the  audiencia,  and  the  number  of  executive 
acts  which  every  governor  had  to  perform  in  a  single  year  was  so 
large  that  it  is  not  believable  that  they  could  all  receive  due 
consideration.  Of  course,  the  governor  of  Mexico,  who  was  also 
the  viceroy,  was  by  far  the  hardest  worked  of  them  all  and  an 
entirely  different  set  of  conditions  was  presented  to  the  pro- 
vincial governors.  The  governor  of  California,  for  instance, 
though  a  little  potentate  in  his  distant  territory,  had  very 
simple  problems  to  deal  with  compared  to  the  governor  of  a 
populous  district  with  a  large  city  in  addition.  From  the  cor- 
respondence between  the  governors  of  California  and  the  viceroys 
it  is  clear  that  the  former  had  only  petty  difficulties  to  cope  with 
in  comparison  with  the  latter.  The  governors  nearly  all  dis- 
appeared after  the  decree  of  the  intendants  was  put  into  effect, 
but  the  viceroy  was  not  greatly  relieved  by  the  change.  The 
intendency  of  Mexico  was  placed  under  his  charge  and  he  ful- 
filled the  same  civil  duties  under  a  new  name. 


Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  Xetc  Spain  193 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  VICEROY  AS  CAPTAIN-OENERAL 

Toward  the  dose  of  the  period  of  the  Spanish  rule,  all  Spanish 
America  was  divided  into  a  number  of  territorial  units  ruled 
over  by  an  .officer  called  the  captain-general,  or  by  a  viceroy 
whose  chief  source  of  authority  lay  in  his  power  as  a  captain- 
general.1  The  attributes  of  this  office  were  those  which  gave  it 
a  peculiarly  Spanish  character.,  and  it  is  perhaps  not  too  much 
to  say  that  it  was  the  most  characteristic  of  all  the  positions  of 
trust  and  profit  in  Spam's  system  of  colonial  administration. 
Other  nations  hare  had  their  viceroys  and  other  officials  who  had 
their  Spanish  counterparts  in  the  various  subordinate  ranks,  but 
the  captain-general  was  so  distinctly  an  Iberian  institution  that 
the  title  would  seem  out  of  place  in  an  IfrigKsh,  French,  or  Dutch 
colony.  From  Chile  and  the  extreme  south  to  Mexico  and  Cuba 
on  the  north,  the  whole  of  Spanish  America  was  divided,  not 
into  vieeroyalties  or  provinces,  but  captaincies-general,  and  the 
rulers  of  these  districts  had  the  all-important  duty  of  Tnaiiitam- 
ing  the  authority  of  the  Spanish  crown  by  the  ultimate  logic  of 
military  force.  From  some  points  of  view  it  was  a  purely  inci- 
dental matter  whether  or  not  certain  of  these  captains-general 
were  further  dignified  by  the  title  of  viceroy.  It  was  the  military 
command,  the  imperimm.  that  in  the  last  analysis  held  down  the 
subject  native  population,  preserved  order  among  the  Spaniards 


The  office  of  captain-general,  like  practically  all  other  titles,  etrO, 
eedeEiastieal,  found  in  the  «MAt»s^«  was  li  ••Bi>l>"tfi  ifcitw^ 
from.  Spain,  and  the  two  officers  originally  had  the  sane  duties  attached 
to  them  whether  in  Europe  or  America.  As  a  strictly  military  office  the 
grade  of  captain-general  was,  in  the  words  of  Desdevises  du  Dezert.  the 
highest  in  the  whole  military  hierarchy  aad  the  military  governors  of  the 
most  important  provinces  in  Spain  took  that  title,  by  courtesy  as  it  were, 
whatever  their  real  rank  may  have  been.  The  following  Spanish  prov- 
inces had  captains-general  in  1800:  Aragom,  Qrfy *?-*•,  Valencia,  Majorca, 
Granada,  Amhhnw,  Kstremadura,  Old  Castile,  and  Gafiria.  See  Desdevim 
dn  Dezert,  ii,  133-134. 


194  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

themselves,  and  defended  those  most  tempting  regions  from  the 
foreign  enemy. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  derived 
most  of  his  importance  from  the  fact  that  he  was  captain- 
general,  as  well  as  being  governor  and  head  of  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment  as  vice-patron.  In  the  sixteenth  century  it  was 
scarcely  possible  to  make  any  distinction  whatever  between  the 
early  conquerors  and  those  who  succeeded  them  as  the  normal 
chiefs  of  the  army  under  another  title.  From  the  very  beginning 
the  military  aspect  of  things  was  pre-eminent  in  the  Spanish 
colonies.  After  the  first  conquests  were  Completed  and  the  work 
of  Cortes,  Pizarro,  Almagro,  and  Valdivia  was  over,  there  suc- 
ceeded a  period  of  turbulence  which  required  the  presence  of 
a  soldier  in  authority.  After  the  Spaniards  were  once  definitely 
in  the  saddle  and  the  period  of  danger  from  buccaneers  had 
been  weathered,  the  combination  of  military  traditions  with  the 
constant  fear  of  the  English  and  Dutch  prevented  the  evolution 
in  America  of  the  essentially  civilian,  or  English,  type  of  vice- 
roy. As  Villarroel  said,  the  military  functions  of  the  viceroy 
were  from  the  beginning  the  most  important,  and  he  might  have 
added  that  this  primordial  condition  was  never  outgrown. 

No  more  striking  contrast  between  the  Spanish  and  English 
ways  of  governing  dependencies  could  be  offered  than  in  the 
divergent  development  of  the  chief  executive  office  in  the  colonies 
of  these  two  peoples  in  America.  On  the  eve  of  Spanish- American 
independence  the  captain-general  as  the  representative  of  the 
military  side  of  the  administration  was,  if  anything,  gaining  at 
the  expense  of  the  governor  and  his  civil  functions;  that  is,  the 
viceroy  was  becoming  more  and  more  exclusively  a  military  ruler.2 
In  direct  opposition  to  this  was  quite  another  tendency  observ- 


2  Greene,  pp.  188-192.  The  account  given  in  these  four  pages  of  the 
encroachments  of  the  American  provincial  assemblies  on  the  miltiary 
powers  of  the  governor  is  brief,  but  clear  and  trustworthy.  I  am  not 
aware  of  anything  analogous  for  Spanish  America.  An  examination  of 
the  instrucciones  of  the  Spanish  viceroys  and  a  comparison  of  the  earliest 
ones  with  the  latest,  would  show  a  striking  growth  in  the  amount  of 
space  devoted  to  the  department  of  the  captain-general.  For  example, 
compare  the  instruction  of  Antonio  de  Mendoza,  circa  1544,  with  that  of 
Marquina,  1803. 


Smith:  Tke  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  195 

able  in  the  evolution  of  the  English  provincial  governor.  As  a 
result  of  the  steady  encroachments  of  the  provincial  assemblies 
upon  the  powers  of  the  royal  governors,  even  the  control  over 
the  colonial  forces  was  taken  from  them,  at  least  in  a  very 
large  measure,  so  that  the  legislative  committees  and  other  agents 
of  the  assemblies  took  the  actual  direction  of  the  forces  against 
the  Indians,  becoming  responsible  at  times  even  for  the  discipline 
of  the  troops.  Thus  it  was  that  a  governor  of  Virginia  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  practically  lost  all  semb- 
lance of  a  military  character,  while  Governor  Dinwiddie's  con- 
temporary. Revilla  Gigedo,  the  Elder,  was  primarily  a  captain- 
general  and  afterwards  a  governor.  These  facts  explain  the  con- 
dition referred  to  in  chapter  i,  namely,  that  only  military  men 
and,  as  it  turned  out  in  most  cases,  those  woefully  deficient  in 
experience  or  natural  aptitude  for  civil  administration.,  could 
aspire  to  the  head  of  a  viceroyalty,  while  in  the  English  colonies 
the  chances  of  a  mere  soldier  for  the  governor's  post  were  in- 
creasingly slight. 

Another  evidence  of  the  importance  of  the  viceroy's  position 
as  captain-general  may  be  inferred  correctly  from  the  controversy 
in  regard  to  the  succession  to  these  duties  when  a  viceroy  died 
without  a  pliego  de  providencia.  There  could  be  no  difficulty  in 
allowing  the  audiencia  to  take  over  the  duties  of  the  governor  as 
well  as  those  of  the  vice-patron  when  the  viceregal  office  was 
vacated,  but  such  a  post  as  that  of  commander-in-chief  could 
not  be  turned  over  lightly  to  a  cumbersome  body  of  inex- 
perienced civilians.  It  was  with  the  utmost  concern  that  Kevilla 
Gigedo,  in  1789,  contested  this  whole  question  along  with  that 
of  the  military  honors  to  the  archbishop,  fairly  importuning  the 
crown  to  allow  a  military  officer  to  have  control  of  the  troops 
while  the  audiencia  had  charge  of  all  other  matters  during  the 
ad  interim  government.'  Certain  aspects  of  this  question  were 


>  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  516-522.  From  these  articles  it  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive what  peculiar  importance  the  viceroy  attached  to  his  military  office. 
He  would  hare  much  preferred  to  have  the  command  of  the  troops  fall 
upon  the  subinspector-general  or  the  commandant  of  Tera  Cruz  than  upon 
th?  avdifncia.  Bevilla  Gigedo  to  Yaldez,  Jan.  8,  1790. 


196          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

discussed  in  chapter  n,  illustrating  the  way  the  king  interfered 
in  the  affairs  of  the  viceroyalty,  but  it  is  again  mentioned  here 
as  throwing  light  upon  the  relative  importance  of  the  civil  and 
military  authority  in  Mexico.  The  viceroy  was  particularly  op- 
posed to  any  diminution  of  what  he  regarded  as  his  "funcion 
primitiva, "  and  that  explains  his  energetic  expression  of  the 
views  regarding  the  succession  to  his  command. 

In  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  ablest  of  viceroys,4  by  the  last 
decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  powers  which  belonged  to 
him  as  captain-general  were  not  only  more  distinctive,  but  more 
important  than  those  which  he  possessed  as  governor,  as  vice- 
patron,  or  as  superintendent-general  of  the  real  hacienda.  In 
the  language  of  the  Instruccion  Reservada,  they  were  "of  an 
order  much  superior  and  much  more  extensive  than  any  other.'"5 
It  was  claimed,  furthermore,  and  this  is  an  interesting  argument 
for  centralization,  that  this  greater  authority  had  led  to  a  much 
more  efficient  administration.  Though  it  would  have  been  better 
if  the  military  department  of  Yucatan6  had  been  directly  under 
the  control  of  the  viceroy,  as  were  the  departments  of  justice 
and  hacienda,  yet  there  had  been  such  a  centralization  of  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  captain-general  that  he  had  been  able  to 
administer  the  ramo  militar  much  more  successfully  than  the 
other  branches.  According  to  Revilla  Gigedo,  "That  authority 
which  is  commonly  believed  to  reside  in  the  viceroy,  to  enable 
him  to  secure  peace  and  good  order  in  these  dominions,  would 
have  produced  much  better  results  if  it  had  extended  to  all 
branches  of  the  government  as  well  as  the  military,  and  this  is 
proved  by  the  amount  of  progress  and  reform  in  the  time  of 
my  command  in  the  army  and  in  the  great  economies  secured  in 
the  reforms  of  the  militia,  in  contrast  with  the  slight  progress 
secured  in  the  administration  of  justice  and  the  political  side 
of  the  government."7 


*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  512-513. 
s  Ibid.,  art.  512. 
e  Ibid.,  art-  513. 
''Ibid.,  art.  514. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  197 

It  is  not  easy  to  make  clear  the  military  administration  of 
New  Spain.  There  did  not  exist  a  minister  or  secretary  of  war, 
nor  indeed  a  war  department,  in  any  modern  sense.  There  was, 
of  course,  no  Mexican  legislature  to  provide  for  the  necessary 
revenue  and  for  the  enlistment  and  provisioning  of  the  troops. 
All  legislation  dealing  with  such  matters  emanated  from  Spain, 
as  did  that  for  every  other  department  of  the  government. 
There  was  a  certain  simplicity  in  this  arrangement,  but  in  the 
matter  of  the  administration  of  these  laws  there  are  all  but 
insuperable  difficulties  to  our  understanding  of  it. 

The  viceroy  as  captain-general  was,  of  course,  the  Command- 
er-in-chief and  also  in  some  respects  the  civil  head  of  the  army, 
though  by  no  means  a  regular  secretary  of  war.  In  time  of  war 
he  was  assisted  by  a  council  of  military  men,  consejo  supremo 
de  guerra,  something  akin  to  an  American  board  of  strategy.  In 
times  of  peace  and  under  normal  conditions,  the  troops  stationed 
outside  the  province  of  Mexico  were  taken  care  of  by  the  intend- 
ants8  and  those  inside  this  province  were  under  the  eye  of  the 
captain-general  and  under  his  direct  control.  There  was  no 
regularly  organized  general  staff  to  assist  him,  though  he  had 
a  few  aides  and  orderlies,  and  a  few  officers  at  large  which  he 
might  summon  for  advice,  and  if  he  chose,  send  on  special 
missions  anywhere  in  the  vieeroyalty.  It  was  the  intention  of 
the  crown  to  keep  eight  engineer  officers,  oficitdes  de  ingenieros, 
in  New  Spain,  but  the  Viceroy  Marquina  complained,  in  1803, 
that  only  four  were  actually  available.9  These  were  employed 
on  miscellaneous  duties  but  could  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the 
viceroy's  staff. 

The  first  assistant  to  the  captain-general  and  the  highest 
officer  who  devoted  himself  exclusively  to  military  affairs,  was 
the  subinspector-generaV0  an  appointee  of  the  crown  and  in 


*  The  duties  of  the  intendanto  will  be  discussed  in  considerable  detail 
in  a  later  chapter. 

•  Marquina,  art.  158. 

i°  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  515.  Here  the  viceroy  argues  that,  in  spite  of 
the  excellent  service  of  his  subinspeetor,  the  office  ought  to  be  filled  in 
the  future  by  one  of  the  lieutenants  of  the  king,  who  ought  to  be  ap- 
pointed in  Mexico. 


]98  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

some  ways  a  check  upon  his  nominal  superior  in  Mexico.  His 
title,  subinspector,  implied  that  he  was  a  subordinate  of  the 
inspector-general  in  Spain,11  but  he  seemed  to  have  worked  in 
harmony  with  the  viceroys  and  without  such  conflicts  as  the 
latter  had  with  the  audiencia.  At  any  rate,  in  the  various  vice- 
regal instructions  it  is  made  apparent  that  many  of  the  sugges- 
tions for  reform  in  the  military  institutions  of  New  Spain  came 
from  the  subinspector-generals  and  that  the  responsibility  for 
carrying  out  such  reforms  was  generally  committed  to  them  also. 
General  Francisco  Crespo  prepared  a  complete  scheme  for  the 
reorganization  of  the  military  forces  of  the  viceroyalty,  and  this 
was  accepted  by  the  crown  October  20,  1788,  not  indeed  in  toto, 
but  with  rather  unimportant  modifications.  A  few  years  before 
this,  during  the  rule  of  Viceroy  Cruillas,  when  a  number  of 
military  reforms  were  put  through,  it  was  another  subinspector, 
General  Villalba,  who  was  sent  over  to  superintend  them.  These 
facts  are  mentioned  in  this  connection  to  show  the  importance 
of  the  subinspector,  who  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  chief 
of  staff  that  the  viceroy  had.  After  the  dispute  between  Villalba 
and  Cruillas  had  been  settled  in  favor  of  the  latter  and  it  was 
definitely  settled  that  the  subinspector  was  after  all  directly  sub- 
ordinate to  the  viceroy,  it  was  evident  that  the  Spaniards 
really  took  an  intermediate  position  on  the  general  question  of 
the  degree  of  control  over  the  military  which  should  be  con- 
ceded to  the  colonial  authorities.  King  Charles  III  did  not 
allow  the  subinspector-generalship  to  become  such  an  office  as 


11  There  seemed  to  have  been  some  difference  of  opinion  among  the  vice- 
roys themselves  regarding  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  having  a  special 
officer  for  the  post  of  subinspeetor-general.  For  the  sake  of  economy  the 
younger  Eevilla  Gigedo  recommended  that  the  duties  of  this  office  be 
given  to  one  of  the  generals  in  the  Mexican  service  and  this  suggestion 
was  apparently  acted  upon,  for  Marquina  is  found  arguing  for  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  office  in  1803.  "I  have  given  an  idea  of  my  un- 
alterable opinion,  previously,  regarding  the  importance  of  having  a  sub- 
inspector-general  for  this  kingdom.  I  gave  this  opinion  in  a  letter  to  the 
King  of  July  27,  1800,  to  which  reply  was  made,  November  28,  that  it 
was  not  necessary,  because  the  comandancias  de  brigada  had  been 
created."  Marquina  still  persisted  in  his  demands  for  an  inspector,  but 
he  was  relieved  of  his  position  before  anything  was  done.  Revilla  Gigedo, 
art.  515,  and  Marquina,  art.  285-287. 


i *  I  Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  Xew  Spain  199 

is  now  held  by  the  commander-in-c-hief  in  India,  nor  did  he  send 
over  generals  from  Spain  to  monopolize  the  command  of  the 
troops  as  the  English  government  did  in  North  America.12  On 
the  other  hand,  the  military  powers  of  the  captain-general  were 
not  quite  as  absolute  as  those  of  the  French  viceroys  in  Canada. 
The  organization  of  the  Spanish  forces  in  Mexico  reached 
practically  a  complete  form  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
during  the  rule  of  Viceroys  Agmza.  and  Marquina.  Before 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  scarcely  any 
organization  worth  mentioning,  so  small  was  the  armed  force 
maintained  in  New  Spain,  consisting  of  only  a  few  companies 
of  militia  and  even  fewer  regulars.  The  early  Spanish  con- 
querors were  not  really  regulars  at  all.  but  only  bands  of  adven- 
turers led  by  some  captains  with  very  indefinite  commissions 
from  the  king.  During  the  seventeenth  century  but  few  soldiers 
were  necessary  to  hold  down  the  native  population,  therefore  the 
bulk  of  the  disciplined  troops  were  stationed  at  the  coast  towns 
to  keep  off  the  buccaneers.  The  inroads  made  during  the  seven- 
teenth century  upon  Spain's  American  dominions  did  not  lead 
to  any  notable  increase  in  the  army  of  New  Spain.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  English  in  Jamaica  and  of  the  Dutch  in  Curacao 
was  disturbing  enough  in  its  way,  but  did  not  call  for  a  great 


i*  On  the  face  of  it,  it  would  seem  as  though  the  abolition  of  the  office 
of  subinspeetor  would  have  considerably  increased  the  power  of  the 
captain-general  by  removing  a  possible  rival.  Marquina,  however,  pos- 
sibly because  he  was  a  naval  officer  and  therefore  felt  more  keenly  the 
need  of  a  powerful  military  chief  of  staff,  could  not  approve  of  the 
alternative  scheme  then  in  force-  "De  eontado  no  me  detengo  en 
asegnrar  que  mal  podran  los  diez  eomandantes  de  brigada  snplir  la  f  alta 
de  snbinspeetor,  aim  cuando  ejerzan  sns  funeiones,  si  se  atiende  solo  a 
la  drficultad,  6  mas  bien,  imposibilidad  que  debe  haber  para  que  tantos 
gefes  coneuerden  en  el  modo  pensar;  j  esto  siempre  pondra  al  Yirey  en 
la  perplejidad  que  es  eonsigniente  a  la  variedad  de  opiniones  de  sugetos 
situados  a  mneha  distaneia  entre  at,  resultando  mi  nuevo  y  ertraordinario 
trabajo  para  la  combination  de  los  pensamientos,  7  para  diseernir  despnes 
7  deddine  par  el  mejor  7  mis  acertado;  7  aun  eoando  se  quisiese  no  hacer 
easo  de  esta  reflexion,  no  puede  prescinduse  de  que  los  Cnerpos  veteranos 
no  reeonoeen  en  el  dia  otro  inspector  que  al  Yirey,  j  de  que  no  habra  quien 
en  sn  interior  se  lisonjee  de  poder  llenar  a  un  tiempo  ambos  eneargos  eon 
la  propiedad  y  exactitud  que  exigen.  V.  E.  vera  cuando  guste  lo  que  he 
representado.  j  sobre  todo  toeara  en  breve  la  reaUdad  y  fundamento  de 
mis  reflexiones."  Marquina,  art.  287. 


200          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL. 1 

increase  of  the  land  forces  in  the  Spanish  colonies.  The  struggle 
of  the  maritime  powers,  France  and  England,  in  the  next  cen- 
tury, with  the  overwhelming  victory  of  the  latter,  made  a  change 
for  the  worse  as  far  as  Spain  was  concerned,  and  the  building 
up  of  a  British  colonial  empire  bordering  on  Florida  and  the 
West  Indies  presented  a  new  and  dangerous  problem.  After 
the  experiences  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  Spain  realized  the 
possibilities  of  serious  trouble  from  the  English,  who  had  taken 
Manila  and  Havana  in  1762,  and  had  generally  terrorized  the 
Spanish-American  coasts.  Accordingly,  in  1768,  several  regi- 
ments were  sent  over  from  Spain  for  the  defense  of  Mexico  and 
the  West  Indies.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  office  of  sub- 
inspector  was  given  additional  importance  and  was  conferred 
upon  the  Marques  de  Bubi.  During  the  next  few  years  these 
seven  Spanish  regiments  were  sent  back  home;  nevertheless, 
from  this  time  till  the  end  of  the  Spanish  rule  the  viceregal 
government  retained  a  more  decided  military  character.13  It 
was,  then,  the  danger  of  foreign  war  and  aggressions  from  the 
English  in  particular,  that  gave  a  new  prominence  to  the  office 
of  captain-general  between  the  years  1760  and  1810. 

Before  examining  the  actual  composition  of  the  army  of  New 
Spain  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  III,  it  must  be  made 
clear  that  the  crown  never  attempted  to  maintain  regularly  a 
standing  army  of  royal  troops  in  Mexico,  as  most  European 
nations  did  in  their  colonies  and  as  the  English  still  do  in  India. 
The  military  forces  of  New  Spain  were,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  officers,  recruited  in  the  country  and  their  maintenance 
was  charged  against  the  Mexican  treasury.  From  a  military 
point  of  view  the  viceroyalty  was  intended  to  be  self-supporting, 
though  in  case  of  war  or  emergency  aid  from  Europe  could  of 
course  be  counted  upon.  It  could  never  be  asserted  by  the  Span- 
iards that  their  colonies  had  been  a  drain  on  their  military  re- 
sources in  any  serious  way,  and  it  was  not  till  the  war  of  inde- 


13  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  405.  The  British  establishments  in 
Honduras  were  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  to  Spain.  Branciforte  to 
Paz,  May  31,  1797. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  201 

pendenee  that  there  was  any  occasion  for  the  transportation  of 
troops  to  America  on  a  large  scale,  except  for  the  regiments 
referred  to  above. 

"With  the  exception  of  the  very  unusual  appearance  of  Euro- 
pean regiments  in  New  Spain  in  time  of  war  and  of  a  compara- 
tively small  number  of  officers  taken  from  the  regular  home  army 
for  the  colonial  service,  the  white  men  in  the  Mexican  army  were 
Creoles.  It  was  the  policy  of  the  crown  to  limit  the  total  number 
of  effective  forces  in  New  Spain,  but  to  encourage  the  enlistment 
of  recruits  of  all  the  different  colors  represented  in  the  Mexican 
population.  Besides  the  organizations  composed  exclusively  of 
whites,  there  were  some  made  up  partly  of  whites  and  partly  of 
mestizos;  there  were  companies  made  up  of  mestizos  alone,  with 
white  officers;  and  there  were  even  several  companies  of  black 
freedmen,  both  among  the  regulars  and  the  militia.  Whether 
the  racially  miscellaneous  character  of  the  Mexican  army  was 
due  to  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  home  government  not  to  have 
it  too  closely  united  by  an  .fespf#  de"  corps,  or  to  the  necessity 
merely  of  employing^  in  the  army  anybody  who  could  be  induced 
to  enhst,  is  not  clear,  but  there  is  ample  evidence  that  the  Madrid 
government  was  extremely  jealous  of  the  provincial  troops. 
Their  numbers  were  not  allowed  to  reach  large  proportions  at 
any  time,  though  that  cannot  be  charged  to  opposition  from 
Spain  so  much  as  to  the  inability  to  get  sufficient  funds.14 
Viceroy  Branciforte  was  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  a  larger  force 
in  his  territory  but,  as  he  complains,15  he  was  obliged  during  the 
two  years  and  eight  months  of  his  rule  to  send  away  in  subsidies 
on  the  king's  account  thirty-two  millions  of  pesos.  Such  a  sum 
of  money  as  this  implied  that  little  or  nothing  could  be  done  in 
the  way  of  a  comprehensive  reorganization  of  the  troops  on  a 
peace  footing.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  state  that  he  did  not 


«  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  407,  note  17. 

is  Braneif orte,  art.  23.  ' '  Es  constante  que  en  los  doe  afios  y  poeo  mas 
de  ocho  meses  de  mi  gobierno  en  estos  dominios,  ban  salido  de  ellos,  por 
Veracruz  y  Acapulco.  para  Europa.  Asia,  islas  de  Barlovento,  Loisiana, 
Florida  y  pro  vine  ia  de  Yucatan,  treinte  y  dos  millones  de  pesos  por  quenta 
del  Key." 


202          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

have  enough  men  under  his  command  to  put  down  popular 
tumults  in  a  country  so  large  as  the  one  he  was  called  upon 
to  rule  over.16 

The  various  authorities  seem  unable  to  agree  upon  the  num- 
ber of  troops  actually  with  the  colors.17  It  is  possible  that  no 
one  knew  how  many  there  were,  though  Bancroft  claims  to  know 
that  there  were  only  4700  regulars  between  1789  and  1794.18 
Yet  Revilla  Gigedo  in  his  instructions  to  Branciforte  claimed  that 
there  were  more  than  twice  as  many.  In  1789  the  whole  army 
exclusive  of  the  militia  and  irregulars  amounted  on  paper  to  about 
5600  men.19  Another  authority,  cited  by  Bancroft  in  a  footnote, 
declared  that  the  total  force  of  all  arms,  and  of  all  grades  of  dis- 
cipline and  effectiveness,  amounted  to  over  29,600  men.20  Within 
these  wide  fluctuations  there  is  little  use  of  attempting  to  fix  any 
definite  figures,  but  it  is  obvious  enough  that  the  whole  military 
establishment  was  on  a  small  scale  compared  with  the  population 
and  even  the  wealth  of  the  country.  The  isolation  and  natural 
position  of  Mexico  were  its  chief  defences,  as  at  that  time  its  land 
frontiers  were  still  too  far  from  the  English-speaking  peoples 
to  the  northeast,  and  its  seacoast  was  so  unhealthful  as  to  dis- 
courage an  invasion  from  that  direction. 

In  1789  the  regular  army  was  composed  of  the  following 
units:  four  regiments  of  infantry;  two  companies  called  the 


i«  Branciforte,  art.  13.  "...  cuando  reducidas  a  la  menor  expresion 
las  fuerzas  de  este  ej^rcito,  no  eran  suficientes  para  eontener  alborotos 
populares  en  un  reino  tan  vasto  coino  el  de  Nueva  Espana. " 

IT  In  the  correspondence  of  Branciforte  with  his  successor,  Azanza,  is 
found  a  document  giving  in  tabular  form  the  composition  of  the  army  of 
New  Spain  in  the  spring  of  1798.  The  total  force  amounted  to  31,594 
men,  distributed  as  follows:  25,502  in  the  Army  of  Occupation;  5,504  in 
cantonments;  4,816  in  garrison;  2,120  at  posts  not  fortified;  and  20,819  in 
the  provinces  and  at  home.  As  some  of  these  figures  are  mutually  in- 
clusive they  are  very  confusing,  but  two  facts  may  be  gleaned  from  them. 
The  first  is  that  the  total  armed  force  of  the  country  was  31,594;  and 
the  other,  that  the  field  army  numbered  25,502. 

is  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexco,  iii,  407. 

i»  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  565.  ' '  Cotejada  la  f uerza  que  debia  tener  este 
ejercito  de  tropa  veterana,  cuando  yo  entre  en  el  mando,  con  el  que  debe 
tener  en  el  dia,  resulta  un  aumento  de  quinientas  noventa  y  siete  plazas 
ef  ectivas,  pues  entonces  era  su  total  f  uerza  de  cinco  mil  seiscientas  tres. ' ' 

20  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  414,  note  35. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  203 

Volunteers  of  Catalonia;  and  three  fixed  companies,  stationed 
at  Acapulco.  San  Bias,  and  the  Presidio  del  Carmen;  two  com- 
panies of  artillery  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  men  each;  two 
regiments  of  dragoons;  and  two  troops,  also  of  dragoons,  sta- 
tioned at  the  Presidio  del  Carmen.*1  One  of  the  regiments  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  cadre,  and  none  of  the  organizations  had  the 
full  complement  of  men.  As  it  was  hard  on  any  body  of  troops 
to  be  stationed  long  at  such  places  as  Vera  Cruz  and  Acapulco, 
on  account  of  the  climate  and  the  generally  unhealthful  conditions, 
therefore  it  was  proposed,  in  November,  1789,  to  create  another 
company  of  artillery.  This  one  was  designed  to  relieve  the  other 
two  by  turns  at  the  unhealthful  posts  and  also  to  act  as  a  sort 
of  extra  force,  in  cases  of  emergency.  All  this  was  approved  by 
the  crown  and  soon  went  into  effect,  along  with  a  number  of 
other  minor  changes  necessitated  by  the  outbreak  of  war.  Among 
these  changes  was  the  sending  of  a  couple  of  the  regiments  of 
infantry  to  Havana.22  To  make  up  for  the  lost  services  of  these 
regiments,  a  "fixed."  or  garrison  company,  compama  fija,  was 
raised  for  the  fortress  and  city  of  Vera  Cruz,  and  more  atten- 
tion began  to  be  bestowed  upon  the  various  means  of  making  the 
militia  more  numerous  and  efficient. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  with  a  regular  army  no  larger  than 
the  one  described  above  and  so  widely  scattered  over  a  large  area, 
it  was  impossible  to  have  any  further  organization  into  larger 
units.  A  regiment  in  the  Spanish  army  was,  as  elsewhere  in 
Europe,  the  administrative  unit.  The  new  system  of  grouping 
together  regiments  into  brigades  and  brigades  into  divisions,  with 
two  or  more  divisions  united  to  form  an  army  corps,  was  not  yet 
(circa,  1794)  the  practice  in  Europe;  consequently  such  a  thing 
was  not  to  be  thought  of  with  the  meager  forces  in  New  Spain. 
Before  the  century  was  over,  the  whole  vieeroyalty  was  divided 
into  ten  divisions  or  departments,  each  commanded  by  a  briga- 


21  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  542. 

"Ibid.,  art.  561.  "The  same  circumstances  [the  outbreak  of  war] 
required  the  dispatching,  first  of  the  regiment  of  Xueva  Espafia  and 
afterwards  that  of  Mexico  to  Havana,  and  in  consequence  of  that,  the 
creation  of  the  new  bataJlo*  fi jo  of  Vera  Cruz." 


204          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

dier,  comandante  de  brigada,  each  brigadier  acting  as  inspector- 
general  in  his  own  circumscription,  but  this  was  as  far  as  any 
higher  organization  of  the  troops  went.23 

The  amount  of  care  given  by  the  home  government  and  the 
viceroys  to  the  organization  of  the  militia  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  in  the  absence  of  a  large  standing  army  this  reserve  must  be 
the  ultimate  dependence  in  case  of  war.  To  be  sure,  it  had  not 
yet  attained  to  a  very  high  degree  of  efficiency  by  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  Revilla  Gigedo  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  in  ease  of  serious  foreign  invasion  veteran  Spanish  troops 
would  be  necessary  to  defend  the  country.  Nevertheless,  the 
reorganization  of  the  reserve  force  was  pushed  vigorously  and  the 
more  important  of  the  viceregal  instructions  are  full  of  plans 
and  comments  on  the  various  schemes.  It  need  surprise  no  one 
that  an  officer  trained  in  the  regular  Spanish  army  should  have 
held  slightly  contemptuous  views  of  the  colonial  militia.  The 
English  generals,  before  and  after  Braddock,  were  not  entirely 
enthusiastic  over  the  colonials  they  sometimes  had  to  command, 
even  on  campaigns  against  the  Indians,  where  the  militia  and 
volunteers  appeared  to  the  best  advantage,  and  a  similar  pre- 
judice was  to  be  expected  among  the  captains-general  writh  regard 
to  their  non-regular  soldiers.  However,  after  making  all  allow- 
ance for  bias  in  our  historical  sources,  the  records  must  be  under- 
stood to  condemn  the  Mexican  militia  as  untrained  and  ill- 
equipped. 

It  would  seem  impossible  to  devise  a  plan  of  military  organ- 
ization which  should  be  quite  as  difficult  to  understand  as  the 
organization  of  the  Mexican  militia  described  in  the  various  in- 
structions of  the  viceroys.  The  following  statement  is  an  attempt 
to  disentangle  the  main  facts  from  the  confused  accounts  in 


as  Marquina,  art.  257.  The  real  meaning  of  the  Spanish  word  brigada 
must  not  be  confused  with  our  brigade.  Like  their  word  compania,  which 
is  not  the  English  company,  brigada  was  used  in  the  general  sense  of 
organization  or  unit,  and  apparently  did  not  mean  a  body  of  troops  of  a 
definite  number.  The  following  use  of  the  word  in  the  instruction  to 
Branciforte  illustrates  my  point:  "...  pero  como  siempre  hay  alii  una 
brigada  6  destacamento  de  artilleria,  que  es  de  28  hombres  ..."  Revilla 
Gigedo,  art.  554.  Also  Revilla  Gigedo  to  Conde  del  Campo  de  Allange, 
August  2,  1791. 


Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  205 

the  primary  material,  and  the  starting  point  must  be  that  plan 
submitted  by  sobinspeetor  Crespo.  in  1778.  This  plan  called  for 
four  complete  regiments  of  infantry,  four  separate  batallions, 
two  corps  of  grenadiers  and  light  infantry,  gramadores  y  caza- 
dort$.  all  of  which  were  to  be  Caucasians;  two  batallions  of  col- 
ored troops,  and  fifty  companies  of  coast  guards.  There  were  also 
to  be  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  companies  scattered  through 
the  interior  provinces.  Then  there  were  six  complete  regiments 
of  cavalry,  a  squadron  of  lancers  at  Vera  Cruz,  and  a  regiment 
of  infantry,  called  the  city  commercial  regiment,  and  another 
squadron  of  cavalry  for  the  City  of  Mexico.  This  whole  force 
was  to  number  35.613  men  and  was  to  be  maintained  at  an 
annual  charge  of  a  little  over  three  hundred  thousand  pesos.24 

Each  of  the  regiments  was  to  have  a  colonel,  two  lieuten- 
ant-colonels, one  commandant,  twelve  sergeant-majors,  four  com- 
manders of  divisions  and  brigades,  two  subinspeetors  of  colored 
troops,  thirty-nine  adjutants,  and  sixty  lieutenants,  a  total  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty-two  commissioned  officers  and  more 
than  four  hundred  sergeants,  corporals,  musicians,  and  others. 
These  officers  were,  of  course,  to  be  veterans,  and  it  was  expected 
that  this  reorganization  would  result  in  a  great  gain  in  efficiency. 
However,  the  objection  to  it  was  that  it  would  be  too  expensive.25 
and  on  the  recommendation  of  the  younger  Bevilla  Gigedo  a  modi- 
fication of  Crespo  *s  scheme,  which  will  be  explained  presently, 
was  adopted.  The  adoption  of  this  modification  resulted  in  a 
saving  to  the  treasury  of  nearly  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
pesos,  but  this  was  obtained  only  at  a  reduction  of  the  total  force 
from  about  thirty-five  thousand  to  about  twenty  thousand  men. 

In  the  opinion  of  the  viceroy  it  was  not  possible  to  raise  a 
larger  force  without  too  great  a  drain  upon  the  country,  and 
furthermore,  he  did  not  believe  that  it  would  be  possible  to  use 


24  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  661.  See  also  Humboldt,  voL  1,  book  ii,  chap. 
14.  for  a  discussion  of  the  Mexican  militi* 

»  Ibid.,  art.  662.  Besides  the  cost  involved  IB  the  Crespo  scheme,  there 
was  the  further  objection  that  it  would  draw  too  many  men  from  peaceful 
occupations  and  furnish  more  militia  than  the  captain-general  would 
know  what  to  do  with.  This  was  discovered  by  a  census,  or  podnm,  one  of 
the  innovations  of  Bevilla  Gigedo. 


206          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

more  than  a  certain  number  of  militia  anyway.  If  a  serious 
danger  came,  he  believed  that  the  main  reliance  must  be  placed 
upon  the  regular  forces  and  regiments  from  Europe,  and  that 
the  militia  would  be  useful  only  when  they  were  not  permitted 
to  constitute  more  than  a  certain  proportion  of  all  the  national 
forces.26  In  other  words,  he  did  not  think  it  good  policy  to  spend 
large  sums  of  money  on  an  indefinite  expansion  of  the  native 
forces.  Branciforte,  though  holding  no  very  high  opinion  of  the 
militia,  inclined  to  the  view  that  the  peace  footing  as  established 
by  Revilla  Gigedo  was  not  on  a  generous  scale.27 

The  modified  plan  which  was  finally  adopted  left  the  militia 
forces  divided  into  the  main  groups  the  description  of 
which  follows.  To  simplify  the  matter  a  classification 
of  these  troops  will  be  given  along  lines  slightly  different  from 
what  is  usually  found  in  the  documents.  What  may  be  called 
group  number  one,  was  composed  of  the  poorest  troops  in  the 
viceroyalty,  namely,  the  various  separate  companies,  companias 
sueltas,  assigned  to  guarding  the  coasts.  The  second  group  was 
composed  of  the  provincial  militia  distributed  throughout  the 
interior  districts.  The  third  group  was  made  up  of  what  might 
be  called  the  " crack"  organizations  of  the  country,  those  organ- 
izations stationed  in  the  important  cities,  such  as  Mexico,  Puebla, 
and  Vera  Cruz. 

The  most  vulnerable  point  of  New  Spain,  the  part  most  ex- 
posed to  foreign  attacks  when  practically  the  only  enemy  was 
the  maritime  power  of  Great  Britain,  was  the  coast  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  In  the  early  days  this  part  of  the  country  had  been 
liable  to  attacks  from  buccaneers,  and  it  was  now  recognized  that 
in  spite  of  the  heat  and  fever  along  the  coast,  an  English  invasion 


2«  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  663.  "...  pues  en  un  caso  de  guerra,  se 
necesita  siempre  eontar  conque  vengan  regimientos  europeas  y  eon  la 
tropa  veterana,  y  solo  seran  utiles  las  milicias,  teniendo  con  ellas  la 
debida  proporcion. " 

27  Branciforte,  art.  13.  Though  there  had  been  no  serious  uprising  of 
the  natives  in  New  Spain,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Branciforte  was  affected 
somewhat  by  what  he  knew  of  the  civil  war  in  the  Peninsula,  which 
occurred  about  ten  years  before.  The  revolt  of  Tupac  Amaru  took  place 
in  1781,  and  taxed  the  resources  of  the  viceroy  of  Peru  to  the  uttermost 


1913]  Smith:  Tke  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  207 

must  be  prepared  against-  Every  plan  for  organizing  the  militia 
had  taken  this  into  consideration,  and  the  wars  of  the  French 
Bevolution  had  made  such  precautions  particularly  necessary. 
Tn  the  spring  and  summer  of  1793  the  following  steps  were  taken 
to  put  the  Gulf  coast  in  a  suitable  posture  for  defense : 

The  coast  on  both  sides  of  Vera  Cruz  was  divided  into  four 
districts,  the  southernmost  reaching  to  the  province  of  Tabasco 
and  the  northernmost  reaching  to  the  river  Panuco  and  the  city 
of  Tampieo.  Throughout  this  region  the  old-fashioned  militia 
companies  were  reorganized,  some  being  suppressed  and  others 
being  augmented,  while  all  were  put  in  shape  for  the  approach- 
ing war.  Out  of  the  thirty-two  original  companies,  some  of  them 
mostly  on  paper,  twenty-two  new  ones  were  created  with  a  total 
effective  force  of  over  twenty-two  hundred  men.2*  These  new 
companies  were  composed  of  both  infantry  and  lancers,  and  were 
divided  among  the  four  divisions.  Skilled  veteran  officers  of  the 
rank  of  captain  were  placed  at  the  head  of  three  divisions  to  take 
the  place  of  the  "comandantes  accidentales,"  men  of  little  in- 
telligence and  inept  in  everything. 

Although  the  southern  and  western  coasts  of  Mexico  were  not 
exposed  to  the  same  dangers  of  invasion  as  those  on  the  north  and 
east,  they  could  not  be  left  without  some  provision  for  their 
def  ense.2*  It  was  decided  to  take  such  measures  in  regard  to  them 
as  would  prepare  the  Spaniards  for  all  eventualities.  Special 
commissioners  were  sent  to  examine  all  the  harbors,  bays,  and 
places  suitable  for  anchorage,  and  to  report  to  the  viceroy  what 
they  thought  should  be  done.  The  great  number  of  antiquated 
militia  organizations  (there  were  eighty-three  different  com- 
panies making  claims  to  existence),  were  reduced  in  numbers 


M  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  605.  The  total  number  of  the  militi*  in  these 
four  divisions,  as  stated  above  in  the  text,  is  given  on  the  authority  of 
the  Yieeroy  Bevilla  Gigedo.  There  is  some  discrepancy  in  his  estimates  for 
the  total  number  of  troops  in  the  vieeroyafty  when  compared  with  those  of 
Brancif orte.  In  such  eases  I  am  not  able  to  say  which  is  the  more  reliable, 
as  both  were  doubt  leas  tempted  to  distort  the  facts  slightly,  the  outgoing 
viceroy  to  exaggerate  the  number  of  troops  he  turned  over  to  his  suc- 
cessor and  the  latter  to  underestimate  their  number. 

»  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  616. 


208          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

and  reorganized,  leaving  out  the  Indians  using  bows  and  arrows, 
but  there  still  remained  companies  with  few  more  than  twenty- 
five  men.30 

According  to  this  new  arrangement  five  divisions  were  pro- 
vided for,  similar  to  the  four  divisions  on  the  Gulf  coast.  The 
first  was  composed  of  eight  companies  of  non-white  soldiers  and 
one  company  of  Spaniards,  and  its  district  was  the  coast  south 
of  Mazatlan  and  southwest  of  Zacatecas.  There  were  six  hun- 
dred and  eighty  men  in  this  division  with  a  captain  for  its  com- 
mander.31 The  second  division,  stationed  just  south  of  the  first, 
along  the  coast  to  the  southwest  of  Guadalajara,  had  eleven  com- 
panies of  infantry  and  lancers,  non-white,  and  t\vo  troops  of 
Spanish  cavalry,  with  a  total  number  of  eleven  hundred  and 
forty  men.  The  headquarters  of  this  division  were  at  Colima.32 
The  third  division  was  that  of  Acapulco,  commanded  by  the 
commandant  of  that  place,  and  composed  of  three  companies  of 
pardos,  three  hundred  in  number.33  The  fourth  and  fifth  div- 
isions were  similarly  organized  and  were  placed  so  as  to  defend 
the  coast  between  Acapulco  and  Tehuantepec. 

To  facilitate  communications  between  these  various  head- 
quarters and  to  observe  the  first  approach  of  an  enemy,  twelve 
lookout  stations  were  scattered  along  between  the  divisions.  This 
entire  force  numbered  over  thirty-five  hundred  men,  and  though 
its  effectiveness  was  never  put  to  a  test  by  an  invader,  its  pres- 
ence gave  a  sense  of  security  to  the  whole  Pacific  coast  region.34 

The  second  group  into  which  it  is  convenient  to  divide  the 
whole  Mexican  militia  was  made  up  of  divers  organizations  not 
included  in  those  just  mentioned,  nor  among  those  stationed  in 
the  large  cities.  Throughout  the  interior  of  the  viceroyalty  there 
were  lists  drawn  up  of  all  persons  qualified  to  serve,  according 
to  the  ratio  of  one  soldier  to  every  fifteen  families  of  pure  blood. 


so  Eevilla  Gigeda,  art.  617. 
si  Ibid.,  art.  618. 
32/Znd.,  art.  619. 
33/&id.,  art.  620. 

id.,  art.  621-622. 


'- '  SmUk:  Tke  Viceroy  of  Xetc  Spain  209 

casta  limpia.3*  The  companies  thus  enlisted  were  gronped  so  as 
to  form  sixteen  divisions  throughout  the  whole  country.  These 
divisions  were  not  of  equal  size,  numerically,  but  depended  on 
the  extent  of  the  various  districts  and  the  density  of  the  popula- 
tion.38 

There  would  be  no  advantage  in  describing  each  one  of  these 
various  divisions,  or  even  locating  the  separate  districts  on  the 
map;  therefore  one  will  be  taken  as  typical  of  all  This  first 
division  comprised  the  districts  to  the  south  of  a  line  drawn 
between  Puebla  and  Vera  Cruz,  and  was  composed  of  nine  com- 
panies with  a  total  force  of  seven  hundred  men.17  Many  of  these 
divisions  had  only  three  or  four  companies  with  three  or  four 
hundred  men.  and  to  believe  that  any  of  them  attained  to  a  very 
high  degree  of  efficiency  would  require  an  exercise  of  faith.38 

The  third  group  in  the  division  of  the  Mexican  militia  was 
undoubtedly  composed  of  the  best  troops  of  the  country,  and 
many  of  the  organizations  had  an  interesting  and  separate  his- 
tory. The  city  of  Guanajuato  had  a  battalion  of  infantry  made 
up  of  one  company  of  grenadiers  and  four  companies  of  fusiliers 
with  an  extra  company,  or  troop,  of  cavalry.3*  This  force  was 
employed  not  only  as  the  garrison  of  the  city  but  also  as  a  sort  of 
police  for  the  surrounding  country.  In  the  city  of  Puebla  was 
a  company  made  up  exclusively  of  bakers,  butchers,  and  tanners, 
the  mounts  being  furnished  by  those  guilds  and  the  other  equip- 
ment by  the  government.  In  the  same  city  was  also  a  regtmiento 
del  comercio,  founded  in  1742.  and  organized  in  imitation  of  the 
similar  but  more  famous  regiment  of  the  capital  city.  This 
regiment  had  only  four  companies,  with  two  hundred  and  twenty- 


is  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art 
art.  629. 
art.  630. 

» Braneif orte,  art.  47.  "The  uniforms  and  mounts  have  been  fur- 
nished completely  and  of  good  quality;  but  the  fire-arms  and  swords  had 
bee*  supplied  provisionally  from  tke  old  collections  which  were  in  the 
royal  armories,  with  the  obligation  of  famishing  new  ones  when  they 
arrived  from  Spain  .  .  .  . " 
»  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  627. 


210          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

eight  men,  but  it  had  all  the  attachments  for  parade  and  cere- 
mony, each  company  having  six  grenadiers  to  act  as  color  es- 
cort.40 

The  most  famous  of  all  the  militia  units  was  the  Regimiento 
Urbano  del  Comercio  de  Mexico,  dating  from  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury.41 It  was  customary  for  every  organization  to  have  its  own 
constitution,  but  this  regiment  did  not  receive  its  arreglo  until 
the  fall  of  1793.  In  1790  the  subinspector-general  reviewed  this 
regiment  and  the  next  year  reported  to  the  viceroy  that  it  had 
six  hundred  and  eight  men  distributed  among  two  companies  of 
grenadiers  and  eight  companies  of  fusiliers,  the  companies  being 
of  unequal  size.  The  grenadier  companies  were  evidently  the 
corps  d'  elite  and  were  made  up  of  men  of  wealth  and  social 
position,  "the  best  men  of  New  Spain,"  according  to  Viceroy 
Branciforte,  writing  in  1797. 42  The  fusiliers,  however,  were  evi- 
dently a  sorry  lot.  They  were  almost  all  mercenaries,  very 
unprepossessing,  both  as  regards  color  and  physique.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  fairly  good  appearance  of  the  grenadiers,  the  review 
might  have  passed  as  a  ridiculous  military  farce,  "por  una  farsa 
militar  ridicula."  After  the  review  the  subinspector  gave  the 
regiment  a  good  overhauling,  removing  among  other  things  the 
abuse  of  allowing  a  member  of  the  consulado  to  hire  a  mercenary 
to  act  as  his  substitute  in  the  regiment,  while  he,  the  merchant, 
enjoyed  the  fuero  militar,  with  all  the  exemptions  which  that 
implied.43 

This  account  of  the  Mexican  militia,  though  it  may  seem  suf- 
ficiently long-drawn-out  already,  is  only  a  general  sketch  which 
leaves  out  a  great  many  separate  organizations  and  even  classes 


40  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  614. 

41  Ibid.,  art.  610,  611,  612,  et  seq.    Later  on  the  consulado  of  Mexico 
asked  to  be  relieved  of  the  duty  of  keeping  up  this  regiment.     The  regi- 
ment contained  over  a  thousand  men  in  September,   1793.     An  earlier 
reference  to  this  matter  is  found  in  the  letter  of  Matias  Galvez  to  Jose 
Galvez,  Nov.  30,  1782. 

42  Branciforte,  art.  40. 

48  It  was  finally  decided  by  the  crown  that  the  privileges  of  the  fuero 
militar  could  be  enjoyed  by  persons  in  the  militia  only  when  they  were 
actually  serving  with  the  colors. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  211 

of  organizations.  The  authorities  speak  of  various  mixed  com- 
panies, black  companies,  and  companies  of  varying  shades  of 
color,  to  say  nothing  of  the  different  kinds  of  equipment  and 
maintenance.  The  military  organization  of  the  interior  prov- 
inces, which  meant  the  districts  along  the  northern  land  frontier 
exposed  to  the  attacks  of  Indians,  was  separate  from  that  of  the 
rest  of  the  viceroyalty.**  The  comandante  general  of  the  Prov- 
incias  Internas  was  independent  of  the  viceroy  in  strictly  military 
affairs,  but  there  was  a  general  tendency  to  abandon  the  different 
special  corps  on  the  other  Indian  frontiers.45  All  the  infantry 
companies  in  the  district  of  Colotlan  were  given  up  and  only 
a  few  dragoons  remained  in  their  stead.  For  a  long  while  there 
had  been  no  little  controversy  over  the  utility  of  the  militia  along 
the  Sierra  Gorda ;  though  they  were  not  all  entirely  abandoned, 
they  were  reduced  in  numbers  and  those  corps  which  had  acted 
as  a  special  frontier  police  were  withdrawn.4* 

The  distribution  of  all  the  troops  mentioned  in  the  foregoing 
paragraphs  can,  of  course,  be  considered  only  in  connection  with 
the  purposes  which  they  were  designed  to  filL  The  forces  in 
the  Provincias  Internas  and  along  the  land  frontiers  were  pri- 
marily for  defence  against  the  natives,  while  the  various  urban 
regiments  and  companies  and  the  various  organizations  scat- 
tered throughout  the  settled  parts  of  the  interior,47  (the  two 
classes  forming  the  great  majority  of  the  militia)  were  to  pre- 
serve internal  order  and  to  act  as  a  reserve  in  case  of  foreign 
invasion.  The  troops  which  were  specifically  designed  to  repel, 
if  possible,  foreign  invasion,  were  placed  in  certain  fortresses 
commanding  the  means  of  ingress  into  the  country. 


«  Kevilla  Gigedo,  ait  719  et  *eq.  The  question  of  the  administration 
of  the  Provineeaa  Internas  was  a  very  delicate  one  for  the  viceroys.  Bet-ilia 
Gigedo  bitterly  resented  the  independence  of  these  northern  frontier 
states  and  he  argued  at  great  length  against  their  separation  from  the 
rest  of  the  viceroyalty.  The  constant  dangers  from  the  warlike  Tndiam* 
in  those  regions  seemed  to  require  the  attention  of  a  military  man  on  the 
spot  and  so  the  crown  decided  against  the  viceroy. 

«  Marquina,  art.  290. 

*•  Brancif  orte,  art.  35.    This  viceroy  was  disposed  to  keep  up  with  the 
militia  forces  that  were  stationed  along  the  Sierra  Gorda  and  Colotlan. 
«  Ibid.,  art  38.    Also  Brancif orte  to  Alvarez,  June  30,  1797. 


212  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

Foremost  among  these  fortified  places  were  Vera  Cruz  at  the 
eastern  gateway  of  New  Spain,  and  Acapulco  at  the  western, 
with  an  interior  fortress  at  Perote  to  serve  as  a  rallying  place 
between  Mexico  City  and  the  Gulf  in  case  Vera  Cruz  were  cap- 
tured. The  fortress  of  Vera  Cruz  really  consisted  of  two  dis- 
tinct places,  but  as  both  were  close  together  and  commanded  the 
eastern  terminus  of  the  Mexieo-Vera  Cruz  highway,  they  may 
be  considered  together.  The  first,  on  a  small  island  lying  right 
before  the  harbor  of  Vera  Cruz,  was  the  well  known  castle  of 
San  Juan  de  Ulua.  In  the  year  1789  it  was  defended  by  two 
hundred  and  thirty-six  pieces  of  artillery.  Some  of  these  were 
out  of  order,  so  that  the  total  number  of  cannon  of  all  calibers, 
together  with  the  mortars,  was  something  like  three  hundred 
pieces.48  About  this  time  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  commandant 
that  a  great  many  of  these  were  only  of  moderate  utility  and  that 
practically  all  the  brass  cannon,  though  in  a  good  enough  state 
of  preservation,  were  of  such  an  old  make  as  to  be  of  very  little 
use.49  The  city  of  Vera  Cruz  proper  had  very  little  in  the  way 
of  fortifications,50  but  its  chief  defence  was  always  its  abomin- 
able climate.51  Moreover,  as  Vera  Cruz  was  the  only  real  harbor 
on  the  Gulf  coast,  and  even  that  was  exposed  to  strong  north 
winds  at  certain  seasons,  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  viceroy  in 
1794  that  it  would  be  a  very  difficult  thing  for  a  hostile  squadron 
to  remain  long  in  that  neighborhood.52  On  the  south  coast, 
according  to  the  same  authority,  there  was  no  danger  of  inva- 
sion because  there  was  no  nation  within  striking  distance  strong 
enough  to  undertake  a  regular  expedition;  and  it  was  hardly 
conceivable  that  any  of  the  European  powers  would  send  a  large 
expeditionary  force  around  Cape  Horn  because  of  any  possible 


48  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  695. 

49  Ibid.,  art.  696. 

oo  Marquina,  art.  173.  "La  primera  [Vera  Cruz]  se  guarnece  con  la 
tropa  veterana  de  este  ejercito,  y  es  capaz  de  muy  poca  defensa:  San 
Juan  de  Ulua  no  promote  tampoco  mucho  si  los  enimigos  le  cortan  los 
socorros;  y  su  guarnicion  se  suministra  de  la  de  Veracruz." 

51  Ibid.,  art.  213.  "  ....  porque  el  mal  temperamento  y  la  temible 
enfermedad  que  alll  domina  con  dolorosos  estragos  en  estos  ultimos  tiempos, 
hace  los  mas  prontos  y  crueles  efectos  en  todos  los  forasteros  .  .  .  ." 

02  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  728. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  213 

advantage  of  attacking  Mexico  by  way  of  Acapuleo.  The  diifi- 
culties  'of  transportation,  the  lack  of  provisions  and  particularly 
of  water,  practically  forbade  any  attempt  to  invade  the  vice- 
royalty  by  way  of  Texas,  so  that  the  only  real  point  of  danger 
was  from  a  landing  at  Yera  Cruz.**  Consequently  all  efforts  of 
defense  were  concentrated  along  the  line  of  the  highway  leading 
from  Mexico  to  the  Gulf  coast  and  that  was  what  gave  the  port 
of  Perote  its  strategic  significance.*4  The  fortress  itself  was  not 
intended  as  a  place  capable  of  withstanding  a  regular  siege,  and 
little  or  no  attempt  was  made  to  make  of  it  a  fortress  of  the  first 
class.  Its  great  value  lay  in  that  it  could  be  made  a  safe  place 
to  collect  military  stores  as  well  as  a  base  from  which  to  succor 
Vera  Cruz  and  San  Juan  de  Ulna.*5  Moreover  the  superior 
climate  of  Perote  and  its  environs  made  it  especially  favorable 
as  a  point  around  which  to  mobilize  troops  intended  to  operate 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Vera  Cruz.  This  same  advantage  was 
possessed  by  the  town  of  Jalapa  which  lay  directly  northwest 
of  Yera  Cruz,  and  it  was  immediately  thought  of  as  a  place  for 
extensive  barracks  when  the  news  of  the  outbreak  of  the  wars 
of  the  French  Revolution  reached  Mexico.54  "With  the  nature  of 
this  country  in  mind,  it  was  believed  by  Revilla  Gigedo  that  with 
the  help  of  two  or  three  regiments  from  Spain  there  would  be 
little  to  fear  from  invasions  in  this  direction." 

The  fortress  commanding  the  best  harbor  on  the  Pacific  coast 
of  Mexico  and  the  one  which  was  used  in  the  Philippine  trade, 
was  officially  called  San  Diego  de  Acapuleo.  This  was  in  some 
ways  the  most  modern  of  the  fortified  places  in  the  country  and 
with  a  little  repairs  would  suffice  for  the  purposes  for  which  it 
was  built.  Several  additional  cannon  with  other  munitions  of 
war  were  brought  to  it  from  Manila  in  1794.  About  the  end  of 
the  century,  one  of  the  viceroys  declared  that,  in  spite  of  those 


53  Bevilla  Gigedo,  ait.  729. 

x/fruL,  art.  699. 

u  Marquina,  art.  173.  "Perote,  que  esta  sttnado  a  un  lado  del  eamino 
real,  puede  solo  servir  para  un  repuesto  resgnardado  de  annas  y  otros 
efeetos  de  gnerra  .  -  .  ." 

M  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  730. 

s?  Ibid.,  art.  733. 


214          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VoL- 1 

augmentations  of  its  resources,  it  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
withstand  a  regular  siege  of  more  than  eight  days.58  However, 
such  a  contingency  hardly  needed  to  be  provided  for. 

Viceroy  Branciforte,  who  devoted  much  of  his  time  to 
purely  military  problems,  had  strengthened  these  various  fort- 
resses, particularly  those  of  Vera  Cruz  and  San  Juan  de  Ulua, 
and  his  predecessor  had  concentrated  a  number  of  additional 
troops  around  the  eastern  coast.59  The  sudden  accumulation  of 
a  considerable  force  in  that  unhealthful  region  led  to  a  fearful 
outbreak  of  disease,  which  not  only  nearly  destroyed  several 
of  the  detachments  sent  there,  but  created  such  a  panic 
among  the  survivors  that  desertions  became  incessant  and  scan- 
dalous.60 This  caused  such  a  dread  of  the  service  that  recruit- 
ing became  more  difficult  than  ever,  and  for  some  time  the  mili- 
tary service  had  such  a  hard  reputation  that  not  only  the  actual 
number  of  the  troops,  but  the  morale  and  discipline  declined 
grievously.  Such  an  epidemic  as  this,  breaking  out  among  troops 
habituated  to  climatic  conditions  much  more  closely  resembling 
those  of  the  Vera  Cruz  coast  region  than  those  with  which  any 
European  troops  were  familiar,  was  some  indication  of  the 
danger  to  which  an  English  expedition  would  have  been  exposed 
had  it  attempted  a  descent  upon  the  same  place.  There  is  no 
question  that  Branciforte  at  least  took  a  hopeful  view  of  the 
situation,  and  I  can  do  no  better  than  to  quote  his  words  :61  ' '  It 
is  certain  that  no  hostile  naval  force  could  arrive  on  the  coast 
of  Vera  Cruz  and  effect  a  disembarkation  of  its  troops  as 


68  Marquina,  art.  173.  "  ....  el  Castillo  de  Acapulco  se  reduce  a  un 
cuadrado  fortificado,  que,  en  mi  concepto,  podra  resistir  a  lo  mas  ocho 
dias  si  f uere  atacado  con  f uerzas  suficientes. ' ' 

so  Branciforte,  art.  62.  This  viceroy  prepared  the  fortress  of  San  Juan 
de  Ulua  to  withstand  a  siege  of  six  months. 

ao  Ibid.,  art.  66.  "  ....  han  destruido  con  enf ermedades  y  muertes 
los  cuerpos  veteranos  y  provinciales  acantonados,  causando  incesantes  y 
escandalosas  deserciones. ' ' 

6i  Branciforte,  art.  67.  Branciforte  was  so  optimistic  that  he  was  able 
to  write  the  following:  "In  such  a  case  our  victory  would  seem  to  me 
the  more  certain  and  the  attempt  of  any  foreign  enemy  to  make  himself 
master  of  this  country  the  more  difficult,  even  though  the  attempt  be 
made  with  a  large  and  veteran  army;  nevertheless,  we  ought  not  to 
give  up  or  postpone  our  prudent  and  opportune  precautions." 


Smiik:  The  Viceroy  of  A«r  Spain  215 

quickly  as  our  forces  eould  occupy  the  positions  for  defense;  it 
ought  fo  be  the  policy  of  the  commander  of  our  forces  to  hold 
them  in  reserve  until  he  can  attack  and  rout  the  enemy  with 
superior  numbers  of  men,  healthy,  strong,  and  robust,  after  the 
enemy  had  been  weakened  by  disease  due  to  the  plmmt^  the 
incommoding  rigors  of  the  heat,  the  insects,  the  rains,  and  the 
lack  of  healthful  provisions. '*** 

It  is  interesting  to  see  the  new  importance  which  the  ports 
of  the  extreme  northwestern  coast  of  the  Mexican  territory  began 
to  assume  by  the  year  1794.  In  a  letter  of  April  li  1793.  Revilla 
Gigedo  laid  the  proposal  before  the  king  that  the  next  ports  to 
be  fortified  should  be  those  of  Monterey.,  San  Diego.  San  Fran- 
dseo.  Bodega,  and  the  mouth  of  the  Ezeta  or  Columbia  River.*1 
With  the  same  purpose  in  view,  the  viceroy  turned  his  attention 
more  and  more  to  the  building  up  of  the  maritime  department 
of  San  Bias.  That  station  had  been  established  with  the  object 
of  affording  a  base  of  operations  for  the  founding  of  the  missions 
and  presidios  in  the  Californias.  All  kinds  of  supplies  were 
shipped  from  this  port,  and  it  was  the  place  regularly  used  for 
fitting  out  ships  to  carry  men  and  provisions  to  the  ports  farther 
north.  By  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  however,  San  Bias 
was  something  more  than  a  convenient  place  for  the  provisioning 
of  the  California  posts,  and  had  become  "a  point  of  the  greatest 
importance  for  maintaining  us  in  the  rightful  possession  of  those 
distant  and  valuable  lands  which  belong  to  His  Majesty  in  that 
region."**  By  this  tone  those  coasts  and  adjacent  waters  had 
begun  to  be  frequented  by  the  ships  of  different  nations  and  a 
growing  sensitiveness  regarding  their  presence  there  was  discern- 
ible in  the  viceregal  instructions.*5  The  expenses  of  the  estab- 


*s  Brancif orte,  ait.  68. 

«3  Berilla  Gigedo,  art.  701.    Barilla  Gigedo  to  Aranda,  Nov.  30,  1792. 

•*l&uL,  ait.  70S. 

•sMarquna,  ait.  194.  "  ....  there  had  visited  the  coasts  of  the 
South  Sea  various  armed  "JE»gH«h  vessels  cruising  or  fishing,  aad  taking 
several  prizes,  besides  reeonnoitering  the  Gulf  of  California  or  the  Sea 
of  Cortes,  going  as  far  as  the  surath  of  the  Colorado,  and  making  small 
<l"*""K»ylr«tMMi  on  the  peninsvla  of  Lower  California,  with  the  object  of 
getting  fresh  water  and  provisions." 


216  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

lishment  of  San  Bias  had  kept  growing  and  it  had  become  by 
the  days  of  Revilla  Gigedo  the  headquarters  of  the  Pacific  squad- 
ron (if  the  few  vessels  could  be  dignified  by  that  name),  and 
was  therefore,  next  to  Vera  Cruz,  the  chief  naval  station  of  the 
viceroyalty. 

The  captain-general  was,  of  course,  the  head  of  whatever 
there  was  of  a  viceregal  navy  and  he  maintained  two  small 
flotillas  on  the  two  Mexican  coasts.  In  addition  to  a  few  coast 
guards,  corresponding  to  modern  revenue  cutters,  there  were 
stationed  at  Vera  Cruz  a  small  and  varying  number  of  gun- 
boats to  supplement  the  defenses  of  the  port.  They  were  of  very 
light  draft  and  were  apparently  the  kind  of  vessels  that  Jeffer- 
son wanted  for  the  navy  of  the  United  States.  Nevertheless,  any 
serious  naval  operations  undertaken  in  the  Gulf  would  be  placed 
under  the  direction  of  an  admiral  of  the  royal  navy,  but  the 
captain-general,  through  his  commandant  at  San  Bias,  could 
exercise  undisputed  control  over  the  movements  of  the  ships  on 
the  Pacific  coast.  In  1794  there  were  attached  to  the  station  of 
San  Bias  three  frigates,  one  packet-boat,  one  brigantine,  three 
goletas,  and  one  sloop.66  The  last  four  boats  were  suitable  for 
exploration  but  did  not  carry  heavy  guns.  The  commandant 
there  had  a  staff  of  ten  naval  officers,  besides  the  usual  chaplains, 
pilots,  and  so  forth.  There  was  also  a  small  arsenal  with  its 
corps  of  workmen  and  a  guard.67 

Important  as  the  station  of  San  Bias  had  become,  there  were 
many  reasons  why  it  would  have  been  better  to  abandon  it 
entirely  and  to  transfer  all  its  activities  to  the  neighboring  port 
of  Acapulco.  Though  the  viceroy  strongly  urged  this  upon  the 
crown  in  1789  and  1790,  the  matter  was  passed  over  without  even 
a  reply.  The  climate  of  San  Bias  was  very  unhealthful.68  It  was 


ee  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  705. 

or  Ibid.,  art.  706. 

•s  Ibid.,  art.  707.  It  was  evidently  the  intention  of  the  viceroy  to  con- 
centrate everything  at  the  port  of  Acapulco.  Besides  the  advantages 
enumerated  above,  there  would  be  the  further  economy  of  having  the 
naval  commandant  act  as  the  castellano,  or  commander  of  Acapulco. 
Furthermore,  supplies  could  be  brought  cheaply  by  water  from  Lima  or 
Manila. 


Smitk  ;  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  217 

a  long  and  most  expensive  process,  the  carrying  of  materials  and 
supplies  by  land  from  Yera  Cruz,  while  the  harbor  of  Aeapuleo 
was  not  only  more  commodious,  but  was  better  defended.  In 
spite  of  these  and  other  icaaous  which  might  be  recited,  the 
captain-general  was  not  allowed  to  have  his  way. 

AMM»ig  the  duties  which  fell  to  the  captain-general  as  head 
of  the  army  was  that  of  providing  for  the  housing  of  the  troops, 
of  providing  barracks  for  them  when  they  were  able  to  be  in  the 
ranks,  and  frmfpHiig  when  they  were  sick  or  wounded.  The 
iMramonal  outbreak  of  an  epidemic  such  as  the  terrible  "romito 
negro"  and  a  high  death  rate  at  other  times,  reflect  the  lack  of 
success  which  the  captains-general  experienced  in  taking  care  of 
the  health  of  their  troops.  No  attempt  was  made  to  procure 
permanent  quarters  for  the  militia,  but  that  problem  for  the 
regulars  was  faced  by  the  younger  BeviHa  Gigedo.  and  he  de- 
voted several  pages  to  the  matter  in  his  instruction  to  his  suc- 
cessor. The  proper  places  to  begin  were,  of  course,  the  important 
cities  of  Mexico  and  Yera  Cruz,  where  considerable  garrisons 
were  kept  regularly  in  times  of  peace.  In  1763  the  work  on 
the  barracks  of  Yera  Cruz  had  been  begun  in  pursuance  of  the 
order  of  the  king,  September  26,  1762,  which  had  appropriated 
ten  thousand  pesos  a  year  for  that  work.  Contracts  for  the 
materials  were  immediately  let,  but  there  then  succeeded  a  series 
of  delays  which,  in  a  manner  quite  characteristic  of  the  Spanish 
administration,  deferred  the  doing  of  anything  really  important 
for  something  like  twenty-one  years,  and  the  work  was  not  ac- 
complished until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.** 

While  the  construction  of  adequate  and  sanitary  barracks  for 
the  regular  troops  was  thus  being  delayed,  it  was  of  course  neces- 
sary to  rent  quarters.  According  to  the  viceroys  these  were 
expensive,  unhealthful,  and  generally  unsatisfactory,  conducing 
to  the  ravages  of  diseases,  and,  of  course,  tended  to  make  the 
aeivkt  unpopular  and  desertions  frequent.7*  It  throws  inter- 


•»  Berilla  Gegido,  art.  676. 

"IWi,  art.  678-    The  d«ty  of  seleetng  sites  for  barracks  fell  to  an 
of  eBgmeen,  im  the  tut  nratiBrr.  and  the*  they  had  to  be 
•fgaoied  by  the  rahiaiper tor. 


218  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

esting  light  on  the  ways  of  the  Spanish  administration,  just  such 
a  question  as  this  one  of  providing  sufficient  barracks.  The  cap- 
tain-general was  responsible  for  the  health  and  efficiency  of  his 
troops,  but  while  he  was  sending  on  the  average  millions  of  pesos 
a  year  out  of  the  country,  he  was  prevented  by  the  indifference 
or  selfishness  of  the  crown  from  taking  those  steps  which  were 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  proper  carrying  out  of  his  duties.  It 
was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  at  last  in  February, 
1792,  authorization  was  finally  secured  for  the  erection  of  bar- 
racks in  Vera  Cruz,  sufficient  for  three  battalions  of  infantry,  a 
squadron  of  dragoons,  and  five  hundred  prisoners  of  the  galley.71 
In  the  capital  itself  there  were  quarters  for  only  one  regiment, 
though  some  improvement  was  made  toward  the  end  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  It  would  be  fruitless  to  give  more  illustrations 
or  to  attempt  to  give  this  subject  further  treatment. 

What  was  true  of  the  effort  to  secure  adequate  barracks  was 
also  true  of  the  military  hospitals.  There  was  no  military  hos- 
pital in  the  City  of  Mexico  and  lacking  this,  it  was  necessary 
to  send  the  sick  soldiers  to  the  hospital  of  San  Andres,  which  was 
under  the  management  of  the  archbishop.72  There  resulted  in 
consequence  constant  bickerings  and  occasionally  serious  disputes 
between  the  hospital  corps  and  the  soldiers.  These  complaints 
were  reciprocal  and  very  hard  to  satisfy,  so  that  finally  admission 
to  the  hospital  was  forbidden  to  patients  suffering  from  certain 
specified  diseases.  Thereafter  it  was  necessary  to  send  soldiers 
with  those  diseases  elsewhere  and  there  were  in  consequence  in- 
efficiency and  delay. 

There  was  a  hospital  in  Vera  Cruz,73  the  San  Carlos,  for 
soldiers  and  sailors,7*  but  a  great  many  more  hospitals  were 


7i  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  681.  It  had  been  the  intention  of  the  viceroy  to 
secure  a  part  of  the  College  of  San  Pedro  y  San  Pablo,  formerly  a  Jesuit 
institution,  for  the  barracks  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  but  this  property  was 
divided  between  the  montepio  and  the  Colegio  Caroline,  and  the  military 
was  left  out. 

12  Ibid.,  art.  682. 


73  Marquina,  art.  215-217.    ' '  Considero  que  ninguna  habia  tan  oportuna 
como  la  construccion  de  un  hospital  nuevo  y  capaz,  sobre  lo  que  dej6  un 

pediente    mi    inmediato    ant 
>mpo  .  .  .  ." 

74  Revilla  Gigedo,  art  683. 


expediente    mi    inmediato    antecesor,    y    otro    se    ha    principiado    en    mi 
tiempo  .  .  .  ." 


1913]  Smith :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spam  219 

needed  all  over  the  country.    One  was  indeed  began  at  Chihuahua 
in  the  spring  of  1790,  but  that  was  only  the  merest  beginning.75 

Such  details  as  these  are  necessary  to  show  the  actual  course 
of  affairs  in  New  Spain,  and  to  show  the  real  nature  of  the  power 
of  the  captain-general.  The  primary  authorities  abound  in 
evidence  of  the  diverse  nature  of  his  task  and  of  the  restrictions 
imposed  by  the  mother  country  upon  the  proper  fulfilment  of  it. 
The  captain-general  had  to  attend  in  a  general  way  to  the  pay 
of  the  troops,  their  equipment,  their  housing,  and  their  training. 
He  had  to  direct  the  great  powder  factory  at  Chapultepec  and 
see  that  its  products  were  distributed  aright.7*  He  was  re- 
sponsible through  the  subinspector-general  for  the  inspection  of 
the  troops  and  was  directly  charged  with  the  inspection  of 
the  artillery.  Viceroy  Marquina  tells  of  his  drawing  up  a 
reglamento  governing  the  securing  of  goods  from  the  storehouses 
containing  the  artillery  supplies.77 

Although  the  financial  duties  of  the  viceroy  were  mainly  those 
which  came  to  him  as  superintendent-general  of  the  real  hacienda, 
yet,  owing  to  the  peculiar  methods  of  financing  the  military 
establishments  in  Mexico,  it  might  even  be  said  that  the  captain- 
general  had  something  to  do  with  the  raising  of  revenues. 

The  regular  forces,  the  army,  as  the  Mexicans  called  them, 
were  maintained  out  of  the  viceregal  treasury.  The  urban  regi- 
ment of  the  City  of  Mexico  was  paid  for  by  the  consulado  of  that 
city,  and  various  funds  were  tapped  for  the  support  of  the  dif- 
ferent militia  organizations.  When  the  militia  was  reorganized 
in  1764.  under  General  Yillalba,  it  was  ordered  that  a  special  tax 
should  be  levied  in  each  province  for  that  purpose.  A  com- 
mittee was  appointed  to  consider  the  whole  matter.  This  com- 
mittee was  composed  of  the  viceroy,  Visitor-General  Galvez,  and 


«  Bevilla  Gigedo,  ait.  684. 

• «  Marqnina,  art.  191. 

"IbicL,  ait.  190.  "La  inspection  del  ramo  de  artilleria  estaba 
ententes  onida  al  Yireinato,  7  las  prineipales  provideneias  que  se  habian 
dietado  sobre  la  materia,  se  redocian  a  la  formation  de  on  reglamento 
para  el  taller  de  Perote,  ....  7  la  instruction  ....  relative  al  meiodo 
7  formaUdades  para  la  ....  extraction  de  efectos  en  los  almatenge 
del  ....  ramo  de  artilleria." 


220          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

General  Villalba,  and  as  a  result  there  was  levied  a  new  tax  on 
pulque  of  half  a  real  on  every  cargo,  brought  into  Mexico78  (Feb- 
ruary, 1767).  There  were  other  taxes  on  food-stuffs  and  the 
like,  established  in  the  City  of  Mexico  and  in  Puebla,  but  it  took 
a  long  while  to  have  this  movement  spread  to  the  other  cities. 
In  1774  it  was  proposed  to  increase  the  dreaded  alcabala.  About 
the  same  time  they  even  proposed  to  make  a  government  mon- 
opoly of  the  native  rum  (popularly  called  chinguerito) ,  which 
would  not  compete  with  Spanish  brandies.  It  was  not  until  tbe 
rule  of  Flores,  in  June,  1788,  that  much  real  progress  was  made. 
The  taxes  at  that  time,  in  the  various  intendancies,  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  militia,  were  found  to  be  of  the  greatest  possible 
varieties,  so  great  that  only  a  few  examples  can  be  given  here. 
In  Puebla  there  was  a  sort  of  octroi  tax  on  wheat.  In  Oaxaca 
they  taxed  sugar  and  cocoa,  which  was  sufficient  to  support  twelve 
soldiers  and  a  corporal.  In  Guanajuato  there  was  a  tax  on  corn 
and  wheat,  but  only  a  part  of  the  income  was  devoted  to  the 
soldiers.  In  San  Luis  Potosi  and  Guadalajara  there  were  no 
taxes  at  all  for  the  support  of  the  militia.80  In  February,  1792, 
the  subinspector-general  fell  back  again  upon  the  alcabala  to 
raise  the  necessary  funds,  and  an  addition  of  one-half  per  cent 
was  proposed.81  The  directors  of  this  branch  of  the  revenue 
objected  to  any  further  increase  of  the  alcabala  and  proposed  a 
tax  on  either  tobacco  or  chinguerito.82  None  of  these  new  taxes 
was  levied,  however,  but  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  viceroy  in 
1794  that  the  various  taxes  formerly  established  very  nearly  paid 
for  the  militia,  and  that  nothing  further  was  necessary  than  a 
somewhat  more  just  apportionment  of  them. 

It  is  thus  apparent  that  the  military  establishment  in  New 
Spain  was  not  supported  by  any  logical  and  comprehensive 
scheme  of  taxation  or  by  regular  appropriations  from  the  vice- 


78  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  665. 
™  Ibid.,  art.  666. 
zolbid.,  art.  669. 
si /&«*.,  art.  671. 
id.,  art.  672. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  221 

regal  treasury,  but  was  kept  going  by  a  hand-to-mouth  process 
of  raising  revenue.  It  could  not  be  divined  from  the  documents 
that  the  viceroys  had  any  very  definite  ideas  on  the  subject  them- 
selves, so  that  in  this  ease  the  fault  cannot  be  charged  to  the 
interference  of  the  crown  with  the  viceroy's  plans. 

The  subject  of  the  military  organization  of  New  Spain  cannot 
be  left  without  a  paragraph  on  the  fuero  mHitar.  or  the  special 
rights  enjoyed  by  persons  in  the  military  service,  and  a  para- 
graph also  on  the  montepio  mHitar,  modelled  on  the  institution 
of  the  same  name  in  Spain.  In  1768,  while  Galvez  was  in  Mexico 
as  visitor-general,  there  were  put  into  effect  those  military  ordin- 
ances which  constituted  the  military  code  of  the  country.  Any 
military  man.  or  any  one  who  by  some  means  or  other  secured 
the  fuero  mHitar  (as  was,  for  instance,  possible  to  the  members 
of  the  consulado  of  Mexico  when  they  furnished  substitutes  for 
the  city  regiment)  had  the  right  to  be  tried  by  a  military 
tribunal.  This  might  in  many  cases  give  a  great  advantage  to 
the  member  of  the  favored  corporation  over  the  ordinary  layman 
who  could  plead  no  exemption,  and  so  was,  of  course,  liable  to 
abuse.  Questions  arising  out  of  the  administration  of  this  fuero 
had  to  be  settled  by  the  viceroy  in  his  military  capacity.  As 
head  of  the  army  and  responsible  for  its  discipline,  the  captain- 
general  was  the  supreme  judge  of  the  vieeroyalty  in  all  cases 
within  the  military  jurisdiction.  This  was  so  great  a  power  that 
some  mention  of  it  is  due  in  any  treatment  of  the  position 
enjoyed  by  the  viceroy  as  captain-generaL  The  military  juris- 
diction had  been  gaining  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, according  to  one  viceroy,  "  ....  especialmente  desde  las 
ultimas  declaraciones  que  ban  dado  al  fuero  tanta  extension,  la 
tiene  grandisima  en  estos  reinos  .  .  .  ."•*  Acting  in  his  capacity 
as  supreme  military  judge  the  captain-general  was  assisted  by 
an  auditor  de  guerre  who  was  also  one  of  the  members  of  the 
Mexican  auditncia.  There  was  no  appeal  in  these  cases  over 
the  head  of  the  captain-general  to  the  auditncia.  so  that  in  such 


M  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  98. 


222          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

matters  the  viceroy  acted  practically  in  a  sovereign  capacity.84 
The  montepio  militar  was  established  in  Spain  in  the  year 
1761,  probably  in  imitation  of  the  mont  de  piete  in  France.  In 
February,  1765,  it  was  introduced  into  New  Spain  as  a  kind  of 
pension  fund  for  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  officers  dying 
in  the  service.  This  fund  was  supported  by  a  mesada,  or  monthly 
payment  which  every  officer  had  to  give,  and  a  further  tax  of 
two  and  one-half  per  cent  of  his  pay  thereafter,  and  by  an  annual 
subsidy  of  two  thousand  pesos.  On  the  death  of  an  officer  his 
widow  or  children  received  annually  one-fourth  of  the  salary 
he  had  at  the  time  of  his  death.85  The  administration  of  the 
montepio  militar  was  in  the  hands  of  royal  officials.  The  fund 
received  additions  from  time  to  time  and  by  the  end  of  the  year 
1793  had  brought  into  the  treasury  over  three  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  pesos  and  had  paid  out  enough  less  so  that  there  had 
been  a  surplus  of  over  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pesos.88 
It  must  be  regarded,  then,  as  a  means  of  producing  revenue,  on  a 
small  scale,  as  well  as  a  public  charity  and  a  device  for  making 
the  military  service  more  attractive. 

There  were  a  number  of  general  problems  confronting  every 
viceroy  as  captain-general,  on  which,  if  he  could  not  decide  them, 
he  might  at  least  give  advice  even  on  his  own  authority.  Besides, 
regardless  of  whether  his  influence  was  to  have  any  weight  or 
not,  it  was  impossible  for  him  not  to  have  an  opinion  and  not 
to  ponder  over  it  seriously.  It  must  be  helpful,  if  not  necessary, 
to  an  understanding  of  the  position  of  the  captain-general  to 
indicate  at  least  in  broad  outline  what  these  problems  were. 

The  first  question  had  to  do  with  the  extent  of  the  military 
preparations  which  ought  to  be  made  by  the  viceroyalty  in  antici- 


s*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  99.  ' '  Con  este  nombre  se  halla  tambien  con- 
decorado  el  teniente  letrado  de  la  intendeneia  de  Veracruz,  pero  en  realidad 
no  es  posible  que  ejerza  las  funciones  del  ofieio,  pues  aquel  gobierno  es  inde- 
pendiente  de  este  Capitania  general,  y  asi  solo  en  ella,  y  en  las  indepen- 
dientes  de  provincias  internas  y  de  Merida  de  Yucatan,  puede  haber  con 
propiedad  Auditor  de  guerra,  y  cualesquiera  otros  que  sean  nombrados 
como  el  de  Veracruz,  no  haran  mas  funciones  que  las  da  un  Asesor  en  asuntos 
militares. ' ' 

SB  Ibid.,  art.  734. 
id.,  art.  738. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  223 

pation  of  a  possible  foreign  war.  There  could  be  no  doubt  in 
the  mind  of  any  intelligent  man  that  there  was  always  danger 
of  an  attack  npon  the  Spanish  American  colonies  by  the  English, 
and  after  the  experiences  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  when  both 
Manila  and  Havana  had  been  captured,  there  could  be  no  doubt 
of  the  danger  of  leaving  the  colonies  without  adequate  means  of 
defense.  The  expedition  of  the  English  against  Buenos  Ayres 
in  1806  showed  that  the  Court  of  St.  James  was  in  earnest  in 
its  designs  upon  certain  parts  of  the  Spanish  colonial  dominions, 
while  the  intrigues  with  Miranda,  probably  not  clearly  under- 
stood by  the  Spaniards,  afforded  plenty  of  ground  for  a  suspicious 
attitude  toward  the  English.87  Viceroy  Branciforte  in  a  com- 
munication to  his  successor,  Azanza,  May  28,  1798,  speaks  of 
the  fact  that  he  had  been  informed  by  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
Manuel  Godoy,  regarding  an  expedition  which  the  English  were 
fitting  out  against  Mexico,  in  which  Miranda  was  to  play  a 
considerable  part.  Such  things  as  this  indicate  the  growing 
nervousness  of  the  Spaniard  with  respect  to  his  American  pos- 
sessions, though  the  viceroys  were  not  all  agreed  as  to  the  means 
to  be  employed  in  meeting  the  danger.  Those  who  leaned  toward 
a  strong  military  policy,  of  which  Branciforte  was  undoubtedly 
one,  thought  that  the  proper  course  to  pursue  was  to  increase 
as  much  as  possible  the  military  resources  of  the  colonies.  Vice- 
roys like  the  younger  Bevilla  Gigedo  were  just  the  opposite  of 
alarmists  and  thought  that  the  natural  difficulties  involved  in 
any  attempt  to  conquer  Mexico  were  so  great  that  with  the  aid 
of  a  very  few  Spanish  regiments  the  country  could  defend  itself. 


«•  Branciforte,  in  a  letter  to  Azanza,  dated  May  28,  1798,  refers  to 
Miranda,  "  ....  que  sirvio  de  general  en  Franc  ia  &  los  principles  de  la 
guerra.  v  que  se  halJaba  al  sneldo  de  la  Ingla terra:  asegurandose  por 
ultimo  que  aquel  hombre  perfido  se  habia  embarcado  eon  destine  £  Mexico, 
donde  se  suponia  tener  un  partido  favorable  a  las  operaeiones  de  nuestros 
enemigos;  .  .  .  ." 

It  is  clear  from  the  Minutes  of  a  Comrt-MartiaJ  for  ike  Trial  of  Sir 
Home  Popnam,  London,  1807,  that  in  1804  the  English  government  medi- 
tated an  attack  on  South  America  in  cooperation  with  Miranda.  Bef  erred 
to  bj  Moses,  So*tk  America  on  tJte  Eve  of  Emancipation,  p.  255.  Consult 
also  Bobertson's  Miranda,  listed  in  the  bibliography. 


224          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

Men  who  held  this  view  would  naturally  believe  the  money  was 
better  spent  in  developing  the  internal  prosperity  of  the  vice- 
royalty  and  increasing  the  loyalty  towards  Spain,  than  by  laying 
it  out  upon  new  fortresses  and  new  regiments. 

Though  the  advocates  of  a  strong  military  force  eventually 
carried  the  day,  there  remained  the  other  great  question,  which 
was  debated  warmly  at  the  time,  as  to  what  this  force  should 
comprise.  The  question  was,  should  the  chief  reliance  for  the 
defense  of  the  country  be  placed  upon  the  Mexican  troops,  or 
should  the  viceroyalty  depend  more  and  more  upon  the  regiments 
from  Spain  ?  The  views  of  those  who  placed  their  main  reliance 
upon  European  troops  may  be  summed  as  follows : 

In  the  first  place,  owing  to  the  lack  of  military  spirit  among 
the  Creoles  and  the  Mexican  natives,  and  the  growing  sentiment  of 
indifference  or  disloyalty  toward  the  king,  the  provincial  troops, 
whether  regular  or  militia,  were  inferior  in  quality  to  the 
Spaniards  proper.  The  conditions  of  service  were  so  hard  that 
the  recruiting  of  a  sufficient  number  of  regulars  was  practically 
out  of  the  question,  while  as  many  as  there  were  of  them  were  of 
inferior  quality  compared  with  the  Spanish  veterans  themselves. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  professional  military  men  the  great  majority 
of  the  militia  were  impossibles.  The  militia  officers  were  mainly 
individuals  lacking  in  intelligence,  training,  and  even  courage, 
who  had  purchased  their  positions  to  enjoy  the  dignity  of  even 
a  humble  military  command,  or  else  to  enjoy  the  privileges  and 
exemptions  of  the  fuero  militar.  When  called  into  service  where 
there  was  a  prospect  of  real  fighting,  they  suddenly  took  ill  or 
resigned,  or  in  some  way  shirked  their  duties.88  The  rank  and 
file  had  poor  and  obsolete  weapons  and  did  not  receive  sufficient 


88  Villarroel,  iii,  158-160.  Always  an  atrabilious  critic,  Villarroel  is 
at  his  worst  when  speaking  of  the  evils  of  the  Mexican  militia  system. 
"Without  hyperbole,  the  King  has  more  officers  than  privates;  it  being 
evident  that  most  of  the  former  purchased  their  places  to  make  a  spec- 
tacle of  justice,  to  escape  paying  their  debts,  to  gamble,  and  live  a  life 
of  libertinage  under  the  protection  of  their  epaulettes.  But  if  there  is 
occasion  to  march  to  Vera  Cruz  to  repel  an  enemy  or  for  any  other  urgent 
reason  they  feign  illness  and  make  all  pretexts  imaginable  to  avoid 
the  service." 


Smilk:  The  Viceroy  of  -Veir  Spain  225 

drill  even  with  those  that  they  had.  In  the  face  of  such  facts 
as  these,  and  they  eonld  scarcely  be  disputed,  what  could  be  done 
if  some  ten  thousand  British  veterans  were  safely  disembarked 
at  Yen  Cruz? 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  statesman  there  seemed  other 
reasons  equally  valid  for  committing  the  defense  of  New  Spain 
chiefly  to  the  mother  country.  The  more  the  captains-general 
succeeded  in  making  the  colonies  independent  of  the  crown  in  a 
military  way,  by  improving  the  fighting  spirit  and  discipline  of 
the  colonials,  the  more  dangerous  it  would  be  to  Spain  if  there 
should  ever  occur  a  serious  dispute  between  her  and  the  colonies. 
There  was  already  beginning  to  be  observable  a  strong  antag- 
onism, economically  and  politically,  between  the  two  main 
divisions  of  the  Spanish  empire.  With  this  before  them,  Spanish 
statesmen  could  not  ignore  the  evil  political  effects  of  a  con- 
sciousness of  military  independence  among  the  Spanish  Amer- 
icans. Branciforte  in  a  letter  to  Aianm  refers  to  the  fact  that 
Miranda  was  counting  on  a  following  in  the  vieeroyalty,  if  he 
should  be  able  to  land  there.  In  another  place  the  same  viceroy 
speaks  of  the  tumults  among  the  populace  that  eonld  scarcely  be 
taken  care  of  by  the  forces  at  his  disposaL**  Consequently,  it  was 
nothing  less  than  dangerous  for  Spain  to  try  to  evade  her  respon- 
sibility of  garrisoning  her  dependencies.  Moreover,  on  the 
selfish  side,  Mexico  could  be  made  to  support  a  great  many 
Spaniards,  if  they  were  given  good  positions  in  the  army,  and 
if  the  support  of  that  part  of  the  army  were  charged  to  the 
Mexican  treasury. 

Arguments  quite  as  elaborate  and  perhaps  more  effective  in 
opposition  to  those  given  above  were  in  circulation  among  think- 
ing men  at  the  time  when  everybody  was  deeply  concerned  over 
the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution.  No  one  denied  the  lack  of 
military  qualities  in  the  troops  of  New  Spain  as  they  existed  at 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  it  by  no  means  followed 
that  there  was  any  inherent  incapacity  for  war  or  any  innate 

•»  Braneif  orte,  ait.  13. 


226          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

lack  of  military  virtues  in  the  American  population.90  It  was 
held  by  a  great  many  that  all  that  was  necessary  was  to  spend 
the  same  care  and  money  on  the  native  troops  as  was  done  upon 
the  Europeans,  in  order  to  secure  the  same  degree  of  efficiency. 
It  would  take  time,  patience,  and  money,  but  it  was  perfectly 
feasible. 

From  the  Mexican  point  of  view  there  would  be  the  further 
advantage  of  spending  all  this  money  at  home  and  upon  Mexicans, 
besides  developing  their  own  military  institutions,  and  in  the 
long  run  it  would  be  more  economical  because  the  average  pay 
would  not  be  so  high  in  the  New  World  as  in  the  Old.  The 
complaint  that  there  was  an  excessive  amount  of  idleness  and 
a  lack  of  opportunities  for  work  in  the  colonies  would  be  partially 
met  by  the  employment  of  a  few  thousand  more  men  in  the  army. 

There  were,  moreover,  certain  positive  objections  to  the  pres- 
ence of  Spanish  regiments  in  the  colonies  in  time  of  peace.  It 
was  the  duty  of  the  viceroys  to  take  into  consideration  something 
besides  merely  the  superior  qualities  of  the  European  troops 
when  they  first  arrived  in  America.  To  begin  with,  they  had  no 
sooner  been  disembarked  than  they  began  to  deteriorate.  Their 
downhill  progress  was  rapid,  if  only  a  part  of  Villarroel's  state- 
ment is  true.  The  officers  gave  themselves  up  to  all  forms  of 
dissipation  and  extravagance  and  the  common  soldiers  imitated 
them  to  the  extent  of  their  humble  means.  Disease  and  desertions 
thinned  the  ranks  at  an  appalling  rate,  while  the  general  morale 
was  depreciated  in  proportion.  According  to  Villarroel,  a  Span- 
ish regiment  was  worthless  after  a  short  sojourn  in  Mexico,  and 
besides  the  loss  of  what  would  otherwise  be  valuable  troops,  there 
were  certain  incidental  evils  of  a  serious  nature.91 


»o  Villarroel,  iii,  139.  According  to  this  author,  those  who  held  the 
anti-Spanish  views  admitted  the  inferiority  of  the  native  as  a  fighting 
man  but  attributed  it  to  the  Mexicans'  bad  breeding  and  absence  of 
education.  ''Man  is  by  nature  the  same,  and  what  is  lacking  to 
the  Mexican  is  only  direction,  instruction,  and  subjection  to  the  proper 
discipline  in  order  to  make  him  the  equal  of  the  European,  and  particu- 
larly good  leaders  [are  necessary]  who  by  example  and  energy  can  over- 
come their  evil  inclination,  .  .  .  ." 

»i  Villarroel,  iii,  145  et  seq.  After  pointing  out  the  increased  cost  of 
bringing  over  and  maintaining  the  regulars  from  Spain,  he  asked  the 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  Xetc  Spain  227 

New  Spain  at  this  time  was  beginning  to  be  afflicted  with 
unwelcome  immigration  from  the  Old  World,  particularly 
refugees  from  France.  These  people  very  often  brought  with 
them  "French  principles"  which  did  not  harmonize  with  the 
views  on  society,  religion,  and  government  held  by  the  ruling 
classes  in  the  viceroyalty.  Also,  a  greater  influx  of  undesirables 
of  all  kinds  from  Spain  itself  was  aided  by  the  bringing  over  of 
the  Spanish  regiments.  Deserters  from  the  army  became  a  pest 
to  Spanish  American  society  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  remedy 
but  the  rigid  exclusion  of  all  immigrants  from  Spain,  excluding 
even  the  regulars,  and  then  making  things  uncomfortable  for  all 
the  objectionable  characters  by  herding  them  into  the  Mexican 
army.  In  this  way  it  was  hoped  to  arrange  military  affairs  on 
a  proper  basis  and  at  the  same  time  solve  the  immigration 
problem.  That  this  aspect  of  the  problem,  the  question  of  immi- 
gration, and  that  of  putting  restrictions  on  the  foreign  element, 
had  become  so  important  a  one  to  the  viceroys,  is  apparent  from 
the  documents."1  Branciforte  was  driven  to  communicate  with 
Madrid  on  this  subject  early  in  his  administration  and  he 
informed  his  successor  that  soon  after  he  assumed  command  he 
began  to  instruct  himself T  "with  serious  attention  to  this  grave 
matter.  "**  As  the  preservers  of  public  order  the  captains-general 
had  to  pay  attention  to  these  matters  incidental  to  the  great 
military  question  itself. 


question.  "What  good  is  it  to  the  monarchy  to  send  over  these  troops  for 
the  garrison  of  this  country,  if  after  a  few  months  of  residence  they  are 
not  fit  for  anything,  either  officers  or  soldiers!"  The  officers  give 
theatserres  over  to  j*ego  and  eortfjo,  while  the  soldiers  go  about  well 
dressed  and  many  of  them  carrying  two  watches!  A  further  objection 
was  that  these  troops  adopted  French  manners  and  dress  and  made  them- 
selves the  laughing-stock  of  the  sober-minded. 

**  Villarroel,  iii,  147-148.  There  is  no  definite  information  in  the  docu- 
ments in  regard  to  the  number  of  desertions  from  the  army,  though  it 
seems  to  be  agreed  that  they  were  quite  too  numerous.  Villarroel,  as 
usual,  took  the  extreme  view,  that  hugely  through  these  desertions  the 
Spanish  peninsula  was  being  depopulated  and  the  Mexican  vieeroyalty 
overrun.  This  condition  he  declared  to  have  existed  in  its  worst  form 
since  the  free  trade  decree  of  1778. 

**  Branciforte,  art.  12. 


228          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

It  is  now  perhaps  possible  to  see  quite  clearly  what  sort  of 
capacity  was  expected  of  the  captain-general,  what  sort  of  prob- 
lems he  had  to  face,  and  what  were  the  activities  which  pressed 
upon  his  time  and  attention.  These  duties  were  the  very  heart 
of  the  whole  body  of  responsibilities  which  were  imposed  upon 
the  viceregal  office  and  were  historically  and  actually  the  most 
important  things  which  the  viceroy  was  called  upon  to  do.  It 
was  Villarroel  who  referred  to  the  office  of  captain-general  as 
the  "funcion  primitiva"  of  the  viceroy.  In  the  words  of  Mar- 
quina,  "The  army  of  this  realm  in  its  different  branches  is  an 
object  of  first  importance,  because  one  looks  to  it  as  the  defense 
against  external  enemies,  and  as  the  interior  reserve  for  the 
maintenance  of  good  order  and  tranquility  .  .  .  .  "9*  Because  he 
was  commander  of  the  army  and  navy,  the  captain-general  had 
to  see  to  the  enforcement  of  the  imperial  navigation  laws,  the 
running  down  of  smugglers,  and  the  preservation  of  order  on 
the  frontiers  and  the  navigable  waters.  As  head  of  the  armed 
forces  he  was  chief  justice  for  all  cases  involving  a  fuero  militar, 
and  also  the  one  person  in  the  viceroyalty  to  whom  the  troops 
might  accord  the  royal  honors. 


s*  Marquina,  art.  147. 


-  -'  1 1 :  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  Nem  Spam  229 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  VICEROY  AS  VICE-PATRON 

No  study  of  the  viceregal  office  in  America  would  be  complete 
without  some  reference  to  the  powers  exercised  over  the  church 
by  the  viceroy  as  vice-patron.1  The  vast  spiritual  interests  which 
the  church  possessed  in  the  conversion  and  instruction  of  the 
native  races  of  America  not  only  made  the  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment an  important  feature  in  the  life  of  the  New  World,  but  it 
also  brought  it  into  close  contact  with  the  civil  government. 
Considering  the  importance  of  the  church,  it  is  not  a  little  sur- 
prising that  there  was  so  little  conflict  between  it  and  the  state, 
but  whatever  the  reason  for  this  may  have  been,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  the  relations  of  the  state  and  church  in  Spanish 
America  were  free  from  serious  conflicts,  even  if  these  relations 
were  not  always  exactly  harmonious.2  It  may  be  that  this 
harmony  can  be  accounted  for  by  the  definite  settlement  of  the 
old  controversies  between  the  popes  and  the  icings  of  Spain  before 
there  realty  was  any  church  in  America;  and  also  by  the  fact 
that  the  nwamg  of  communication  between  Rome  and  America 
were  so  inadequate  and  so  indirect  that  there  was  little  chance 
or  temptation  for  the  popes  to  interfere  in  the  Spanish  colonies. 


*  The  two  chapters  in  Bancroft's  Hittory  of  Mexico,  vol.  iii  (chaps.  38 
and  33)  are  so  satisfactory  that  a  formal  treatment  here  of  the  subject  of 
the  church  of  Mexico  would  only  be  ax  imitation. '  What  will  be  dealt 
with  here  under  the  title  of  "The  viceroy  as  Vice-Patron"  is  not  the 
ehnreh  of  Mexico,  but  the  much  narrower  subject  of  the  viceroy's  con- 
nection with  it 

*  These  words  of  Parkman,  with  reference  to  the  potitico-ecelesiastieal 
situation  in  Canada,  would  have  been  true  of  Spanish  America:  "After 
all,  the  dispute  between  the  errO  y»d  ecclesiastical  pumas  was  not  funds- 
mental    Each  had  need  of  the  otter;  both  rested  on  authority,  and  they 
differed  only  as  to  the  boundary  fines  of  their  respective  •hares  in  it." 
Parkman,  Old  Tttgimc  in  Canada,  ii,  135. 


230          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

In  defining  royal  patronage  it  might  not  be  possible  to  do  bet- 
ter than  to  reproduce  the  language  of  some  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury viceroys.  The  elder  Revilla  Gigedo,  in  his  instruction  to  his 
successor,  the  Marques  de  las  Amarillas,  referred  to  it  as  fol- 
lows: "The  Royal  Patronage  of  the  Indies,  as  it  is  defined  in 
Law  I,  title  vi,  book  1,  belongs  to  His  Majesty  by  many  most 
just  titles  in  order  that  the  Catholic  zeal  may  plant,  conserve, 
and  promote  in  these  vast  dominions  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  conversion  of  the  gentiles,  by  endowing  churches  and 
missions  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel;  and  this  being  a  matter 
which  has  been  greatly  agitated  among  writers,  and  many  of  the 
doubts  which  have  influenced  the  prelates  having  been  settled, 
the  Royal  Patronage  is  now  in  the  care  of  the  viceroy,  who  has 
nothing  to  do  but  maintain  its  rights  and  prerogatives  in  their 
present  form."3  Even  more  striking  are  the  words  used  by  the 
younger  Revilla  Gigedo  in  his  instruction  to  his  successor,  the 
Marques  de  Brancif orte :  ' '  The  functions  of  the  Royal  Patronage 
which  the  viceroy  exercises  as  vice-patron  are  those  which  most 
exalt  the  authority  of  that  office,  not  so  much  by  the  direct 
authority  which  they  give  to  the  government,  as  by  the  indirect 
influence  which  is  conferred  upon  the  person  who  rules  even  in 
the  temple  (manda  aun  dentro  del  templo)  and  by  the  ecclesias- 
tics who  were  always  an  object  of  veneration  among  the  peoples 
of  all  nations."4  The  same  authority  thought  that  the  kings  of 
Spain  who  obtained  from  the  pope  the  patronato  universal  de 
las  Indias  had  given  no  greater  evidence  of  wisdom  than  the 
securing  of  that  "richest  jewel  in  the  royal  diadem."5  In  the 
same  light  was  viewed  the  grant  of  tithes  as  a  partial  recompense 
for  the  great  expense  and  labor  which  the  crown  had  been 
exposed  to  in  the  conquest  of  the  country.  "...  In  nothing  else 
has  there  been  better  evidence  of  the  generosity,  piety,  and 
religious  spirit  of  our  Sovereigns  than  in  the  use  which  they  made 
of  this  large  donation,  all  of  which  and  more,  they  have  employed 
in  the  building  and  endowment  of  the  beautiful  temples  which 


3  Eevilla  Gigedo  the  Elder,  art.  143. 

4  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  25. 


: --  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  231 

now  exist  in  these  dominions,  and  in  the  propagation  of  the  faith, 
and  the  teaching  of  that  doctrine  to  the  Indians."* 

From  soeh  statements  as  the  above  it  can  be  seen  how  the 
viceroys  in  the  eighteenth  century  looked  upon  their  positions  as 
vice-patrons.  It  was  to  them  a  matter  of  great  importance  in 
that  it  gave  them  a  certain  prestige  among  the  people  over  whom 
they  were  commissioned  to  role;  but  not  from  the  fact  that  they 
derived  from  it  any  great  increase  of  actual  political  power.  It 
was  not  even  believed  that  a  very  great  deal  had  been  accom- 
plished for  the  religions  improvement  of  the  Indians  after  all 
these  efforts.'  In  spite  of  the  vast  outlay  of  money  on  church 
property  and  the  material  side  of  the  church's  activity,  besides 
the  maintenance  of  a  large  body  of  church  officials,  the  condition 
of  the  natives,  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  was  most  discourag- 
ing even  at  the  end  of  the  Spanish  regime.  "The  most  grievous 
thing  about  it  is.  that  so  great  expenditures,  care,  and  zeal,  and 
such  wise  measures  taken  during  all  these  times  upon  this  point, 
have  not  produced  the  effect  which  one  ought  to  expect,  and 
the  Indians  are  still  very  ignorant  and  rude  in  matters  of 
religion,  as  Your  Excellency  will  discover  when  you  inform 
yourself  regarding  their  devotions  and  the  way  they  fulfill  their 
religious  duties."1 

Though  there  is  an  abundance  of  evidence  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  Indians  of  New  Spain  remained  practically  un- 
affected by  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  yet  this  must  not  be 
charged  to  the  fault  of  the  viceroys.8  The  actual  administration 
of  the  affairs  of  the  church,  particularly  on  its  purely  religious 
side,  was  in  the  hands  of  the  church  officials  and  the  influence  of 


*  BeriUa  Gigedo,  art.  26.    The  words  in  the  quotation  narks  were  not 
Beviila  Gigedo 's  but  came  from  RUndown.   Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico, 
in,  684,  mate  9. 

*  The  one  viceroy  who  unqualifiedly  praised  the  native  population  was 
Braneiforte,  but  he  praised  everything.    Braneiforte,  art.  103.    Bancroft, 
History  of  Mexico,  iiL  681,  note  1. 

T  Revilla  Gigedo,  art.  27. 

*  The  general  directions  of  the  missions  was  in  the  hands  of  the  viee- 
patron,  but  it  was  impossible  for  hint  to  know  all  about  them-     KeviBa 
Gigedo  the  Elder,  arts.  152-155. 


232          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

the  viceroys  could  be  only  very  indirect.  In  a  general  way,  they 
were  to  see  that  the  rights  of  the  king  were  not  infringed  upon  by 
too  zealous  ecclesiastics,  and  that  the  latter  did  not  fight  among 
themselves  to  the  detriment  of  the  interest  of  the  government  and 
the  people  at  large.9  This  vague  and  general  authority  did  not 
allow  of  much  more  than  a  moderating  influence  in  church  affairs, 
as  the  following  pages  of  this  chapter  will  make  evident,  and  so 
from  the  point  of  view  of  this  thesis  the  holding  of  the  real  patron- 
ato  was  only  one  of  the  minor  functions  of  the  viceroy. 

The  history  of  the  jffihl  patronage  in  Spain  and  America  is 
both  simple  and  accessible,  there  being  a  number  of  good  accounts 
in  Spanish  and  a  few  even  in  English.  As  is  stated  in  all  the 
books,  the  rights  which  the  kings  of  Spain  possessed  over  the 
church  in  America  were  derived  from  the  numerous  papal  grants, 
beginning  with  the  celebrated  one  of  Pope  Alexander  VI,  of 
the  year  1493,  and  enlarged  upon  by  the  bull  of  Julius  II,  in 
1508.  As  the  popes  had  little  or  no  machinery  for  managing  their 
interests  in  America,  at  least  in  the  earliest  days,  and  as  the 
Spanish  kings  seemed  disposed  to  co-operate  with  rather  than 
to  antagonize  the  popes  in  purely  spiritual  affairs,  the  concession 
of  the  tithes  and  the  right  to  nominate  all  church  officials  to  the 
king  was  obtained  without  great  difficulty.  In  1574,10  Philip  II 
stated  explicitly  in  a  royal  decree  the  basis  for  his  claims  to  the 
patronage  and  by  that  time  the  exercise  of  it  by  his  predecessors 
had  given  it  a  sanction  which  was  not  to  be  disputed  thereafter. 

Although  the  main  questions  between  the  church  and  state 
had  been  settled  by  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  there 
remained  till  the  end  of  the  Spanish  rule  a  number  of  outstand- 
ing points  of  friction.11  The  papal  nuncio  at  Madrid  was  the 
center  of  most  of  these  difficulties  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
In  the  words  of  Marques  de  Mancera,  1673,  "Some  of  the  apos- 


e  Eevilla  Gigedo  the  Elder,  art.  167.    Mancera,  p.  268. 

10  Moses,  Spanish  Eule  in  America,  pp.  241-242. 

11  One  of  the  most  sweeping  condemnations  of  the  church  and  its  un- 
worthy servants  among  the  viceregal  documents  is  to  be  found  in  the 
instruction  of  the  Duke  of  Linares  to  the  Marquis  of  Valero,  pp.  308-309. 


Smith :  Ihe  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  233 

tolic  nnncios  resident  in  Madrid  have  attempted  at  different 
times  (either  because  of  instructions  or  orders  from  Rome,  or 
because  of  their  own  natural  desire  to  extend  their  authority) 
to  introduce  themselves  with  Italian  dexterity  into  the  affairs  of 
the  new  church  of  the  Indies,  and  they  have  ever  opposed  the 
measure  taken  by  the  Council  ....  to  put  into  effect  the  bull 
of  Gregory  XII,  ordering  that  ecclesiastical  cases  be  concluded 
before  the  royal  judges  without  further  appeal.'*" 

In  such  matters  the  viceroys  resisted  the  pretensions  of  the 
church  and  the  activities  of  the  nuncios  and  prelates  with  such 
vigor  that  difficulties  of  this  nature  had  well  nigh  disappeared 
by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  same  Mancera  de- 
clared that  "The  viceroys  and  ministers  have  acted  in  such  cases 
with  that  care  and  vigilance  which  was  needful  just  in  proportion 
to  the  resistenee  which  the  prelates  offered,  due  to  ignorance  or 
malice."1*  A  case  in  point  was  the  one  growing  out  of  the  pro- 
clamation of  a  jubilee  by  Clement  X,  on  his  accession  to  the 
pontifical  throne.  The  brief  which  the  Pope  issued  on  this  occa- 
sion was  sent  direct  by  the  nuncio  at  Madrid  to  "a  certain  pre- 
late" in  New  Spain,  who  directly  promulgated  it,  and  affixed 
it  to  the  churches,  without  waiting  to  secure  the  previous  ap- 
proval of  the  Council  of  the  Indies  (which  should  have  been 
secured  before  the  brief  was  sent  to  America  at  all)  or  even 
notifying  the  government  in  Mexico.  All  this  irregular  proce- 
dure was  condemned  by  the  order  of  June  10,  1652,  and  this 
action  may  very  well  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Spanish  crown  in  regard  to  allowing  direct  correspondence  be- 
tween the  European  authorities  in  the  church  and  the  prelates  in 
the  Indies.13 

Although  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  there  were  no  points  of 
difference  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  toward 
the  end  of  the  Spanish  regime,  yet  it  must  be  conceded  that  those 
points  of  difference  were  of  distinctly  minor  importance  as  com- 
pared with  the  issue  stated  in  the  above  paragraph.  The  younger 


12  Mancera,  p.  270. 


234          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  i 

Bevilla  Gigedo  and  the  archbishop  had  a  little  trouble  about  their 
relative  dignity,  and  the  small  question  arose  whether  the  arch- 
bishop should  receive  from  the  palace  guard  the  same  military 
honors  as  were  accorded  to  the  captain-general,14  but  the  general 
tone  of  the  relations  of  the  two  was  amicable.   As  an  illustration 
of  the  contrast  between  the  feelings  of  the  heads  of  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical   branches   of   the   government   in   Mexico    in   the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the  following  quotations  may 
not  be  lacking  in  interest.    With  the  markedly  hostile  words  of 
Mancera  in  mind  (see  above)  the  following  words  of  the  instruc- 
tion to  Cagigal,  written  in  1760,  are  striking  enough.    ' '  The  func- 
tions of  the  vice-patron,  which  are  among  the  most  extensive  privi- 
leges conceded  by  the  sovereign  to  his  viceroys,  are  entirely  ac- 
cepted and  in  use.  Your  Excellency  will  find  in  the  most  illustrious 
archbishops  and  bishops  of  this  realm  those  dispositions  which  are 
to  be  expected  from  their  positions  (las  dispositions  de  que  es 
capaz  la  piedad  de  sus  dignidades}  and  the  most  active  zeal  for 
religion  and  for  the  service  of  the  king,  and  without  offense  to 
the  rest,  Your  Excellency  will  immediately  find  in  the  most  illus- 
trious prelate  of  this  capital  all  the  admirable  qualities  which 
with  double  advantage  for  the  above  cited  qualities  will  make 
easy  for  you  a  close  union  of  the  two  jurisdictions,  and  a  happy 
concord  of  honor  and  justice  ...."»     It  is  impossible,  with 
the  limits  imposed  upon  the  length  of  this  paper,  to  reproduce 
here  the  language  of  the  Viceroy  Branciforte,  in  his  characteriza- 
tion of  the  multiple  virtues  of  the  church  and  all  its  servants 
in  his  day,  but  a  few  sentences  will  be  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
general  trend  of  his  remarks.    After  paying  the  highest  compli- 
ment to  the  piety  and  loyalty  of  the  Archbishop  of  Mexico,  Bran- 
ciforte referred  to  the  bishops  suffragan  as  "adorned  with  the 
same  admirable  qualities  and  ....  resplendent  virtues  which 
the   diocesan   prelates   of   New   Spain    possessed    to    an    equal 


i*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  524  et  seq. 

is  Marfil,  p.  109. 

10  Branciforte,  art.  98. 


tfU] 


Smit*:  The  Viceroy  of  JTwc  Spain 

of  the  Holy  Cathedral  Churches  and  the  Royal  College  of  Gnada- 
hipe    weU  served  by  distinguished,  cultivated,  and  exemplary 
priests,  dedicated  to  the  fulfilment  of  their  sacred  offi< 
with  that  decorum,  propriety,  and  apostolic  oal  and  magnifi 
which  induced  true  sentiments  of  religion  and  piety  into  the 
hearts  of  the  faithful."" 

It  would  be  easy  to  increase  the  number  of  citations  o 
kind,  if  it  were  worth  while,  but  enough  has  surely  been  given 
to  indicate  that  a  great  change  had  come  over  the  «**-« 
the  viceroys  and  the  archbishops  from  the  earlier  to  the 
period.     The  crushing  blow  dealt  to  the  Jesuits  in  17<S 
in  no  sense  a  disadvantage  to  the  rulers  of  the  secular  clergy; 
while,  in  general,  the  church  in  America  escaped  those  attack 
upon  its  privileges  and  property  which  Charles  HI  had  insb- 
toted  so  vigorously  in  Naples  and  had  later  applied,  in  a  some- 
what milder  form,  in  Spain  itself.    This  almost  perfect  harmony 
between  the  clergy  and  the  civil  government  during  the  last  days 
of  the  Spanish  rule  will  help  to  explain  the  extreme  loyal 
the  church  to  the  Spanish  government,  when  the  wars  o 

pendenee  broke  out. 

It  would  seem  easy  to  account  for  the  loyal  support  whiel 
the  church  so  uniformly  gave  to  the  government  by  pointing 
out  the  advantages  conferred  on  the  latter  by  the  former,  but  rt 
should  be  remembered  that  there  were  two  sides  to  this, 
church  in  America,  though  it  was  able  to  amass  great  wealth,  wa 
also  obliged  to  contribute  very  liberally  to  the  support  of 
government.     As  was  explained  in  the  preceding  chapter,  the 
salaries  of  the  ecclesiastics  were  taxed  by  the  collection  of  the 
mtdia-anata  and  the  mesadas,  and  in  two  other  ways  was  th 
church  made  to  pay  a  share  for  the  expenses  of  the  state, 
sale  of  the  bulls  of  the  Santa  Cruzada,  while  not  a  tax  on  church 
property,  was  a  means  of  raising  revenue  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  church  and  so  probably  diverted  money  whi 
might  normally  have  gone  into  the  hands  of  the  prelates,  into 


IT  Bnneif  orte,  art.  99. 


236  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

the  royal  treasury.18  Moreover,  the  tithes,  which  were  the  chief 
source  of  revenue  of  the  church,  were,  according  to  the  bull  of 
1501,  to  be  paid  into  the  hands  of  the  king.  They  were  used 
largely  in  the  maintenance  of  the  religious  establishments  but  not 
entirely,  and  a  considerable  surplus  later  came  to  be  reserved  for 
the  ordinary  temporal  demands  on  the  royal  treasury.19 

That  this  complex  financial  relation  of  the  church  and  state 
could  be  maintained  for  centuries  without  any  friction  whatso- 
ever was  not  to  be  expected,  in  spite  of  the  general  good  under- 
standing between  them.  There  were  some  cases  of  misunder- 
standing between  the  viceroys  and  the  prelates  in  the  course  of 
Mexican  history.  In  one  case,  the  king  disregarded  the  grant 
of  immunity  from  paying  tithes  which  had  been  made  by  the 
pope  to  Cortes  ;20  in  another  case,  in  1539,  the  bishops  of  Mexico 
and  Michoacan  "disagreed  on  this  subject,"  according  to  Ban- 
croft, "and  the  king  ordered  the  latter  prelate  to  submit  to  the 
decision  of  the  viceroy  and  the  oidores  without  appeal. '  '21  Other 
examples  might  be  given  of  disagreements  between  the  lay  and 
clerical  authorities  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
but  their  respective  rights  were  pretty  well  established  and 
mutually  understood  by  the  days  of  Charles  III. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Spanish  administration  of 
New  Spain  the  duties  which  fall  to  the  viceroy  as  vice-patron, 
or  the  personal  representative  of  the  king  as  the  temporal  head 
of  the  church,  may  be  considered  under  three  heads.  Under 
the  first  may  be  placed  those  duties  which  related  to  the  appoint- 
ing power,  and  which  involved  the  right  of  presentation,  or  the 
nomination  of  all  church  officials  holding  appointive  offices,  which 
amounted  to  being  present  at  the  election  of  those  church  officials 


is  The  chief  source  for  information  about  the  financial  system  of  New 
Spain  is  still  the  Historia  de  Real  Hacienda,  by  Fonseca  and  Urrutia,  6 
vols.,  Mexico,  1853.  The  revenues  derived  from  the  church  are  all  ex- 
haustively treated  there. 

is  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  666,  note  50. 

20  Ibid.,  p.  668,  note  58. 

21  Ibid.,  p.  667,  note  54. 


- '  -  Smith  :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  237 

who  received  their  nominations  from  chapters  and  other  colle- 
giate bodies.  Under  the  second  mar  be  grouped  those  viceregal 
functions  which  brought  the  viceroy  into  contact,  and  sometimes 
conflict,  with  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  and  the  various  privileges 
and  exemptions  which  the  church  and  its  functionaries  possessed 
as  an  organization  more  or  less  outside  of  the  ordinary  civil 
government.  Under  the  third  may  be  considered  that  group  of 
political  activities  in  the  field  of  education  and  charity  which 
was  so  largely  under  the  control  of  the  church.  Within  these 
three  groups  may  be  classified  practically  every  official  act  which 
the  viceroy  performed  as  vice-patron.  I  shall  now  attempt  to  show 
what  part  each  one  had  in  the  administration  of  the  viceroyalty. 

In  the  earliest  days  of  the  Spanish  conquests  and  colonization  \ 
the  small  number  of  priests  and  friars  in  America  required  no 
special  supervision,  and  constituted  no  particular  problem  for  the 
home  government.  When  the  church  had  been  so  fully  estab- 
lished that  it  possessed  large  properties,  its  own  hierarchy  of 
fdBmala  up  to  the  archbishops  in  Mexico  and  T.ima,  and  had 
difficulties  in  its  own  internal  organization  growing  out  of 
jealousies  of  the  secular  and  regular  clergy,  the  necessity  of  a 
vice-patron  was  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  king.  In  1535 
the  first  viceroy  in  America,  Antonio  de  Mendoza,  was  given, 
along  with  his  other  powers,  that  of  the  royal  patronage.  He  was 
to  have  full  power  to  present  to  all  benefices,  high  and  low.  and 
fix  the  limits  of  the  dioceses  as  well  Although  he  was  com- 
missioned to  fill  all  vacancies  in 'the  church,  in  practice  the  arch- 
bishop of  Mexico  (the  first  one  was  Juan  de  Zumarraga.  1547) 
and  the  other  prelates  were  elected  by  their  respective  chapters 
in  the  presence  of  the  king's  representative.  In  such  elections 
it  was  necessary  for  the  viceroy  to  exercise  extreme  care  lest 
partiality  or  prejudice  on  the  part  of  the  members  of  the  chap- 
ter prevent  the  choice  of  the  right  candidate.  The  elder  Bevilla 
Gigedo.  writing  in  1755.  declared  that  the  vice-patron  "ought 
to  observe  the  names  placed  in  nomination  with  great  circum- 
spection." Again  he  stated,  "as  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  find 
a  chapter  whose  members  combined  learning,  virtue,  and  impar- 


238          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

tiality,  it  is  not  possible  to  count  upon  the  majority  of  votes  being 
cast  for  the  most  worthy."22 

This  appointing  power  covered  all  cases  of  promotions  and 
translations  of  the  secular  clergy  and  the  privileges  of  the  regu- 
lars to  fill  curacies  or  to  enjoy  any  exceptional  favor.  It  extended 
to  all  positions  in  the  cathedral  chapters,  though  it  was  enjoined 
upon  the  viceroy  that  graduates  from  Spanish  universities,  and 
from  Lima  and  Mexico,  should  be  favored  over  others.  When 
an  election  took  place  in  any  monastery  or  collegiate  body,  it 
was  customary  for  the  viceroy  to  appoint  an  asistente  real  to 
act  in  his  stead  as  the  representative  of  the  king.23  As  many  of 
these  places  were  very  well  paid,  particularly  the  four  stalls  in 
the  Cathedral  of  Mexico,  there  was  often  a  lively  competition  for 
the  vacancy.24 

One  viceroy  tells  how  difficult  it  was  to  secure  impartiality 
in  such  appointments,  although  it  was  necessary  for  the  most  in- 
telligent selection  of  the  candidate :  "  ....  for,  as  it  has  turned 
out  in  my  time,  before  the  election  had  taken  place,  each  candi- 
date had  made  sure  of  the  number  of  votes  upon  which  he  could 
count."25 

As  has  already  been  intimated,  the  election  of  the  officials 
among  the  regular  clergy  came  under  the  supervision  of  the  vice- 
patron.  At  times  these  elections  aroused  such  partisan  feelings 
among  the  electors  that  special  measures  had  to  be  taken  to  pre- 
serve the  proper  forms  and  decorum.  There  were  occasions  when 
something  worse  than  a  breach  of  decorum  was  imminent.  The 
younger  Revilla  Gigedo,  writing  in  1794,  left  an  account  of  an 
election  held  in  the  Franciscan  convent  of  the  City  of  Mexico 


22  Eevilla  Gigedo  the  Elder,  art.  145. 

23  Ibid.,  art.  146.     This  authority  states  that  he  was  accustomed  to 
appoint  as  asistente  real  a  Jesuit,  "accredited  with  virtue  and  letters." 
This  functionary  was  to  be  present  at  the  synods  and  meetings  where  the 
candidates  appeared  in  public,  so  that  he  might  inform  the  viceroy  regard- 
ing the  qualifications. 

2*  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  690,  note  26.  There  was  a  possibility 
of  disagreement  between  the  viceroy  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
over  the  matter  of  vacancies.  Eevilla  Gigedo  to  Porlier,  July  27,  1790. 

25  Kevilla  Gigedo,  art.  29. 


Smith :  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  239 

in  which  "there  would  have  been  the  greatest  difficulty  in  finding 
a  remedy  for  the  disorder  which  was  brewing  if  I  had  not  re- 
ceived, in  advance,  positive  information  that  certain  individuals 
belonging  to  one  of  the  parties  into  which  those  friars  were 
divided,  were  holding  their  own  sessions  in  the  name  of  the 
assembly."26  It  seems  that  these  churchmen  were  occasionally 
tempted  to  indulge  in  such  sharp  political  practices  that  the  vice- 
roy felt  the  necessity  of  intervening  in  order  to  compose  the  fac- 
tional fights  and  prevent  scandal  to  the  church.  About  the  same 
time  there  was  a  meeting  of  the  Augustinians  in  the  Mexican 
capital,  according  to  the  same  authority,  which  threatened  such 
a  breach  of  the  peace  that  the  viceroy  had  to  call  in  the  services 
of  a  member  of  the  audiencia."  The  Augustinians  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Michoacan  likewise  gave  the  viceroy  some  concern  over 
the  matter  of  bringing  over  some  more  members  of  their  order 
so  that  there  would  be  the  proper  alternation  between  the  Span- 
iards and  the  Creoles  in  the  appointments  to  office.28  Twenty 
thousand  pesos  had  been  provided  for  the  expenses  of  the  trip  of 
these  newcomers,  and  the  whole  matter  was  at  last  settled  by 
an  agreement  between  the  viceroy  and  the  archbishop,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  real  cedvla  of  April  9,  1791. 

The  selection  of  the  curates,  or  parish  priests,  offered  very 
little  difficulty  to  the  vice-patron.2*  It  was  necessary  for  the 
names  of  three  candidates  to  be  presented,  and  the  viceroy  usually 
chose  the  one  mentioned  first,  owing  to  the  practical  impossibility 
of  deciding  between  the  relative  merits  of  the  competitors.30  This 
practice  was  identical  with  that  long  since  prevailing  in  England. 


»  Barilla  Gigedo,  art.  34. 

*Ibid^  art.  33. 

*»  Ibid.,  art.  36.  Also  Maneera,  p.  273.  An  explanation  is  given  here 
of  the  policy  of  "alternation,"  which  was  not  easy  to  carry  out  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Spaniards  and  Creoles. 

**Ibid.,  art.  30. 

so  Instrufdon  General,  pp.  59  and  60.  Here  the  vice-patron  was  specifi- 
cally ordered  to  examine  into  the  merits  of  the  three  candidates  proposed, 
and  if  none  of  them  were  suitable,  reject  all  three  and  require  a  second 
trio  of  nominations.  Watch  was  also  to  be  kept  upon  the  bishops  in  order 
that  they  might  not  allow  vacancies  to  go  too  long  unfilled,  and  appro- 
priate the  curate's  salary  to  themselves. 


240          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

where  the  king  nominally  has  the  appointment  of  the  bishop  or 
prebend,  but  with  rare  exceptions  chooses  the  first  on  the  list. 

In  addition  to  the  appointments  among  the  regular  clergy 
mentioned  above  and  the  overseeing  of  the  elections  in  the  mon- 
astic orders,  there  also  belonged  to  the  royal  patronage  a  number 
of  colleges,  and  among  them  there  were  forty-two  fellowships 
and  twenty  chairs.31  In  these  cases,  also,  the  recommendation  of 
the  rector  would  probably  have  weight,  but  the  choice  lay  with 
the  viceroy  if  he  cared  to  insist  upon  having  it  so.  The  remain- 
ing positions  in  these  colleges  or  seminaries  were  filled  according 
to  the  terms  of  their  endowment,  or  by  competition.  One  other 
appointment  must  be  mentioned  before  leaving  this  part  of  the 
subject.  In  every  diocese  there  was  to  be  an  official  who  was  to  go 
on  circuit,  as  it  were,  with  the  object  of  remedying  abuses  and 
reporting  upon  them.  This  diocesan  visatador  was  regularly  ap- 
pointed from  the  cathedral  chapter.32 

The  second  point  of  contact  between  the  church  and  state  in 
New  Spain  was  the  administration  of  justice.  All  the  secular 
clergy  enjoyed  the  fuero  eclesidstico,  which  gave  them  practically 
as  great  an  exemption  from  the  operation  of  the  ordinary  law  of 
the  land  as  was  claimed  by  Thomas  Becket  in  the  twelfth  century. 
It  was  not  until  well  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  the  common  courts  were  given  jurisdiction  when  a  church- 
man committed  a  serious  crime.  It  was  during  the  rule  of  Branci- 
forte,  October,  1795,  that  a  real  cedula  was  issued  depriving  the 
ecclesiastics  of  these  privileges.  Two  years  before  this,  accord- 
ing to  the  viceroy, ' '  Among  the  privileged  jurisdictions,  the  chief 
one  is  the  ecclesiastical,  which  in  these  dominions  was  formerly 
in  a  very  high  position  (en  el  mas  alto  punto)  •  but  its  limits  have 
been  reduced  gradually,  and  finally  it  has  been  still  further  nar- 
rowed down  by  the  decree  that  the  secular  courts  have  cognizance 
in  matters  affecting  the  principal  and  income  of  the  church 
endowments  (capellanias)  and  pious  works  (obras  pias)."33 
These  ecclesiastical  tribunals  conducted  themselves  in  the  same 


si  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  37. 

32  Ribadeneyra,  p.  275. 

33  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  94. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  .Veir  Spain  241 

manner  as  those  in  Spain,*4  that  is,  there  was  one  for  every  small 
district  in  marked  distinction  to  the  tribunal  of  the  inquisition, 
which  sat  in  Mexico  City  bat  included  within  its  district  not  only 
the  whole  viceroyalty,  bnt  also  the  Kingdom  of  Guatemala,  the 
Windward  Islands,  and  the  Philippines.*5 

Although  the  church  retained  a  much  favored  position,  legal- 
ly, for  so  long  a  time  in  the  Spanish  empire,  the  extinction  of  its 
most  important  privileges  came  before  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Even  before  the  decree  of  October,  1795,  the 
viceroys  had  successfully  maintained  their  right  to  decide  dis- 
putes over  jurisdiction  (competencia) ,  a  right  which  has  been 
called  "one  of  the  things  which  give  the  greatest  authority  to  the 
employment  of  the  viceroy."3*  All  ordinary  cases  coming  to  the 
ecclesiastical  courts  had  to  be  settled  in  the  viceroyalty,  or  at 
least  might  not  be  appealed  beyond  the  Council  of  the  Indies. 
Appeals  from  the  decisions  of  papal  delegates,  whether  appointed 
ad  hoc  or  of  an  ordinary  cleric  acting  in  that  capacity,  went  to 
Borne  itself.  It  would  only  be  fair  to  state  that  long  before  limi- 
tations began  to  be  placed  upon  the  church  courts  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  EH  and  Charles  IV.  there  had  been  a  great  many 
noteworthy  prohibitions  in  regard  to  what  cases  these  courts 
could  take  cognizance  of  and  what  punishments  they  might  in- 
flict. As  this  topic  is  satisfactorily  treated  by  Bancroft,  nothing 
more  than  the  reference  will  be  given  here ;  and  the  curious  ques- 
tion of  the  right  of  asylum,  which  the  church  maintained  at  this 
time,  will  be  taken  up." 


**  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  95. 

»/o«L,  art.  96. 

M/frtt,  art.  93. 

«r  While  Bancroft's  treatment  of  the  subject  of  the  church  in  Mexico 
a  valuable  because  of  the  wealth  of  material  upon  which  his  account  is 
baaed,  as  well  as  the  general  sanity  of  his  judgments,  he  has  scarcely  said 
the  but  word  on  the  subject-  For  instance,  on  page  710,  voL  iii,  of  his 
History  of  Mexico,  he  states  that  "the  nuns  were  as  contentions  as  the 
friars."  His  general  reference  in  support  of  this  statement  is  to 
Viceroy  Maneera.  No  attempt  was  made  to  reconcile  the  statements  of 
Maneera  with  those  of  Viceroy  Bevilla  Gigedo  (the  Elder)  who  appar- 
ently deliberately  exempted  the  nuns  from  such  a  charge:  "En  las 
refigiosas  y  sus  eleeeiones,  poeo  6  nada  tiene  el  Virey  porqne  la  blandnra 
de  sn  aexo  con  facilidad  se  reduce  al  dietamen  de  los  prelados."  Art.  168. 


242  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

The  custom  of  regarding  certain  churches  and  sacred  places 
as  rightfully  giving  sanctuary  to  criminals  was  an  inheritance 
from  Spain  and  the  earlier  centuries.  Such  a  practice  as  the 
legal  recognition  of  an  asylum  could  only  give  undue  encourage- 
ment to  criminals.  Charles  III  had  diminished  this  evil  in  Spain 
by  placing  limits  on  the  number  of  sanctuaries  and  the  kind  of 
malefactors  that  might  take  refuge  in  them.  The  popes  co- 
operated with  the  royal  authority  to  abate  this  evil  and  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  viceroys  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  enforce  these 
new  regulations  in  America.  It  cannot  be  disputed  that  these 
numerous  places  of  refuge  for  criminals  gave  unnecessary  en- 
couragement to  a  part  of  the  population  that  ought  not  to  have 
had  protection,  but  that  the  whole  question  of  the  right  of  sanc- 
tuary was  also  one  of  very  minor  importance  to  the  viceroy  is 
equally  indisputable.  Because  of  this  comparatively  slight  im- 
portance, the  whole  subject  is  dismissed  with  so  brief  a  notice 
in  the  account  here  given  of  the  duties  of  the  vice-patron. 

There  remains  one  other  phase  of  the  broad  question  of  church 
and  state  in  New  Spain  which  had  caused  no  little  difficulty  to 
the  viceroys  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  but  which 
had  been  brought  to  a  satisfactory  settlement  before  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth.  The  Inquisition  had  been  introduced  into  Spain 
by  the  Catholic  Kings  about  a  decade  before  the  first  voyage  of 
Columbus  and  had  been  supported  there  by  succeeding  rulers 
against  all  its  enemies,  even  the  popes  and  the  church  itself. 
In  1569  the  inquisition  with  its  tribunals  was  set  up  in  Mexico 
with  the  same  legal  status  that  it  had  in  Spain.  However,  the 
tribunal  of  the  Holy  Office  in  Mexico  did  not  get  along  as  smooth- 
ly with  the  viceroys  as  it  did  with  the  kings  at  home  after  the 
reign  of  Philip  II.  Bickerings  and  misunderstandings  at  last 
became  so  numerous  that  the  crown  thought  it  necessary  to  inter- 
fere. In  1610  Philip  III  promulgated  the  famous  Concordia, 
which  was  designed  to  offer  a  modus  vivendi  consistent  with  the 
continued  activity  and  usefulness  of  the  Inquisition,  but  pre- 
venting its  encroachment  upon  the  rightful  authority  of  the  vice- 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  243 

roys.18  It  is  not  possible  to  regard  this  Concordia  as  a  definite 
settlement  of  all  the  evils  it  was  intended  to  provide  against. 
It  was  still  possible  for  such  serious  disputes  to  arise  that  the 
inquisitors  felt  justified  in  excommunicating  or  threatening  to 
excommunicate  the  viceroy,  and  for  the  latter  to  reply  with 
threats  of  banishment. 

In  1727  Philip  V  issued  a  decree  ordering  the  viceroy  to 
resist  encroachments  of  the  Inquisition  upon  the  rights  of  the 
king,  but  to  cooperate  with  it  in  carrying  on  its  legitimate 
duties.3*  Twenty  years  later  the  inquisitor  general  prepared  an 
elaborate  regulation  attempting  to  define  the  respective  rights  of 
his  subordinates  and  the  king's  officers,  though  the  former  did 
not  always  live  up  to  their  instructions.40  The  reform  legislation 
of  Charles  m  settled  in  favor  of  the  crown  the  disputes  over 
competencia,  giving  the  viceroy  the  final  word  in  all  these  mat- 
ters of  disputed  jurisdiction.*1  In  fact,  the  later  viceroys  made 
little  or  no  complaint  of  any  troubles  with  the  Holy  Office,  and 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  considerable  relaxation  of  vigor  on 
the  part  of  the  latter  on  the  eve  of  the  Spanish  American  revolu- 
tion. The  one  criticism  which  Revilla  Gigedo,  in  1794,  levelled 
against  the  Inquisition  was  that  it  had  been  the  custom  for  its 
tribunal  to  publish  the  edicts  or  decisions  without  first  submit- 
ting them  to  the  viceroy.  But  on  his  complaint  that  this  was 
a  very  strange  procedure,  "cosa  bien  estrana,"  the  king  ordered 
that  in  the  future  the  viceroy  was  to  be  notified  before  any  of 
the  edicts  of  the  Inquisition  were  published."  As  the  other 
instructions  of  the  viceroys  are  silent  in  regard  to  this  matter 


38  As  a  rule  the  viceroys  speak  respectfully  of  the  Inquisition.  Man- 
e-era, writing  in  October,  1673,  said  that  "the  tribunal  of  the  Holy  Office 
which  resides  in  Mexico,  having  been  granted  the  fullest  jurisdiction  and 
having  been  ennobled  by  many  pontifical  and  royal  privileges  and  exemp- 
tions, has  been  and  is  feared  and  respected  with  all  veneration  in  these 
provinces  .  .  .  ."  This  same  viceroy's  comments  on  the  Coneordia  are 
the  only  ones  I  know  of  from  a  viceregal  pen.  Mancera.  Instruction  de 
log  Fireye*,  pp.  270  and  271. 

3»  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  700,  note  57. 

40/Wd.,  note  58. 

*i  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  93.  Before  deciding  a  question  of  competencia 
the  viceroy  took  the  opinion  of  the  fiscal  de  Jo  civil. 

« Ibid,,  art.  97. 


244  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

of  disputes  between  the  representatives  of  the  civil  power  and 
the  Inquisition,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  there  were  no  serious  ones, 
and  that  some  time  before  the  final  abolition  of  the  Holy  Office 
in  Mexico,  in  1821,  it  had  ceased  to  be  a  vigorous,  militant 
institution.48 

As  was  stated  in  chapter  in,  about  everything  relating  to 
education  and  charity  was  in  the  hands  of  the  church.  There- 
fore, no  account  of  the  administrative  activities  of  the  vice-patron 
would  be  complete  without  some  reference  to  his  relations  to 
those  forms  of  public  philanthropy,  these  relations  forming  the 
third  group  of  the  viceroy 's  duties  as  vice-patron.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  part  the  viceroy  had  to  play  in  these  matters  was 
scarcely  more  than  nominal  and  belongs  most  certainly  to  that 
large  class  of  minor  duties  which  went  to  swell  the  vast  number  of 
governmental  acts  which  he  was  supposed  to  perform.  In  only  the 
most  limited  sense  could  the  viceroy  be  regarded  as  a  minister  of 
education — any  more  than  could  the  king  himself  in  Spain  be  so 
regarded.  The  actual  management  of  the  schools  and  seminaries, 
and  even  the  highest  institutions  of  learning,  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  church  and  their  respective  faculties,  and  the  authority  of 
the  head  of  the  government  was  invoked  only  in  cases  of  disputed 
jurisdiction,  or  petty  details  of  ceremony. 

The  nearest  approach  to  an  actual  direction  of  these  eleemosy- 
nary institutions  was  shown  in  the  appointment  of  the  officials 
connected  with  them.44  This  was  briefly  described  under  the  first 
division  of  the  vice-patron's  functions.  Nevertheless,  the  super- 
vision of  the  schools  and  hospitals  extended  somewhat  further 
than  the  appointment  of  the  principal  officials.  The  duty  of 
an  occasional  inspection  fell  to  the  vice-patron,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  case  of  the  College  of  San  Ildefonso  which  was  improved 
by  a  visit  of  a  couple  of  commissioners  during  the  rule  of  the 
younger  Revilla  Gigedo.45  The  same  viceroy  did  introduce  one 
novelty,  as  the  result  of  the  royal  cedula  of  June  11,  1792.  The 


«  Bancroft,  History  of  Mexico,  iii,  701. 
4*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  41. 
45 Ibid.,  art.  38. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  245 

reform  in  question  required  that  henceforth  teachers  in  the  uni- 
versities, seminaries,  and  coeducational  schools  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  royal  patronage  must  obtain  a  license  from  the  vice- 
roy before  contracting  marriage.4* 

The  vice-patron  had  an  opportunity  to  influence  the  course 
of  educational  policy,  indirectly,  by  reporting  to  the  king  on 
things  that  interested  him.  If  the  power  of  the  rector  of  one 
of  the  universities  seemd  too  great,  it  was  perfectly  proper  to 
incorporate  this  opinion  in  an  instruction  to  a  successor  or  even 
to  the  king  direct.47  Kevilla  Gigedo  introduced  his  comments 
of  displeasure  in  regard  to  the  rector  of  the  University  of  Mexico 
in  his  Instruction  Beservada.  The  viceroy  thought  it  very  shock- 
ing, "muy  chocante,"  that  the  rector  should  allow  his  servants 
to  carry  arms  when  such  a  distinction  was  denied  to  the  highest 
officials  of  the  viceroyalty.  The  same  viceroy  criticised  the 
curriculum  and  library  facilities  of  the  university,  and  advocated 
the  carrying  on  to  completion  of  the  botanical  gardens.48  In 
such  ways  as  these  the  vice-patron  could  influence  the  policy  of 
the  schools,  though  one  cannot  at  present  be  sure  to  what  degree 
or  even  in  what  direction.4' 

The  power  of  the  vice-patron  over  the  hospitals  of  the  coun- 
try was  similar  to  that  which  he  possessed  over  the  schools  and 
colleges.  The  royal  hospital  for  Indians,  at  the  capital,  was  under 
the  immediate  care  of  the  viceroy,  who  had  been  accustomed  to 
delegate  his  authority  over  it  by  appointing  a  judge  of  the 
audiencia.*0  After  1791,  in  accordance  with  a  command  from 
the  king,  the  regente  was  regularly  given  this  position,51  though 
the  matter  was  complicated  by  the  issuance  later  on  of  other 


«  Kevilla  Gigedo,  art.  40. 

« Ibid.,  art.  44. 

«  JMd.,  art  46. 

«•  As  there  was  realty  no  such  thing  as  secular  education  in  Mexico  and 
as  the  viceroys  were  always  soldiers  or  priests,  it  is  not  believable  that 
they  attempted  any  serious  reforms  along  this  line.  There  is  to  be  found 
an  occasional  reference  to  industrial  training,  but  that  seems  to  be  all. 

*o  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  50. 

« IWd,  art.  51. 


246          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

orders  from  Madrid  of  a  contradictory  nature.52  The  hospital  of 
San  Andres,  at  the  capital,  was  under  the  direction  of  the  arch- 
bishop, a  fact  mentioned  to  show  the  lack  of  uniformity  in  the 
system  of  hospital  administration  and  the  absence  of  complete 
control  by  the  vice-patron.53  "When  the  confusion  of  these  ar- 
rangements became  at  all  serious,  a  reference  of  the  entire  dis- 
pute or  difficulty  to  Madrid  was  always  in  order,  and  few  im- 
portant steps  were  taken  without  word  from  the  home  govern- 
ment. In  1794  there  was  pending  the  question  of  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  second,  or  assistant,  surgeon  at  the  Indian  hospital, 
as  full  information  had  been  submitted  to  the  king  by  the  viceroy, 
but  the  royal  decision  was  still  to  be  made.54 

From  the  foregoing  review  of  the  position  of  the  vice-patron 
in  New  Spain,  it  must  be  apparent  that  his  activities  entitle  him 
to  only  the  secondary  consideration  of  the  modern  student. 
Though  he  was  the  king's  representative  in  everything  touching 
ecclesiastical  policy,  he  was  never  trusted  to  carry  out  any  im- 
portant measure  on  his  own  sole  responsibility.  An  illustration 
from  the  history  of  the  missions  will  answer  as  well  as  any.  One 
of  the  most  important  steps  taken  in  the  eighteenth  century  in 
the  furtherance  of  the  mission  policy  was  that  one  of  Serra's,  in 
California.  But  the  interesting  fact  about  the  expedition  from 
the  point  of  view  of  Spanish  colonial  administration  was,  that 
it  was  set  on  foot  and  directed  in  the  earlier  stages  by  the  visi- 
tador  general,  Galvez,  and  not  by  the  viceroy.  In  other  details 
of  administration  the  circumscribed  character  of  the  vice-patron 's 
position  was  equally  evident.  If  a  hospital  had  to  be  suppressed55 
or  a  building  constructed  for  the  botanical  gardens,  the  royal 
permission  had  to  be  secured,  and  throughout,  the  strict  control 
of  the  home  government  was  never  relaxed.  The  most  that  could 
be  said  about  the  importance  of  the  real  patronato  would  be  to 
the  effect  that  it  was  increasing  as  time  went  on,  and  that  it  was 


52  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  54. 
53l&id.,  art.  59. 
s*  Ibid.,  art.  56. 
id.,  art.  47. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  247 

more  extensive  at  the  end  of  the  Spanish  rule  than  it  had  been 
at  the  beginning.  The  general  tendency  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury was  for  an  extension  of  the  power  of  the  crown  as  against 
that  of  the  church,  even  if  the  crown  did  not  see  fit  to  endow 
its  representatives  in  America  with  any  part  of  this  increment 
of  authority. 


s«  Bevillo  Gigedo,  art.  57. 


248          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  REFORMS  OF  GALVEZ 

A  brief  account  of  the  place  of  Jose  de  Galvez  in  the  history  of 
the  office  of  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain  was  given  in  chapter  I. 
The  object  of  this  chapter  is  to  show  in  some  detail  what  was 
actually  accomplished  by  him  after  his  return  to  Spain  to  fill  the 
office  of  Minister  General  of  the  Indies.  "While  his  influence  had 
been  felt  in  all  the  departments  of  the  administration  of  the 
Indies,  and  he  was  justly  regarded  as  the  prime  mover  of  a  great 
multitude  of  changes  in  the  government  of  the  Spanish  colonies, 
it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  his  greatest  work  as  a  reformer 
was  embodied  in  two  pieces  of  legislation  of  the  most  far-reaching 
influence.  The  first  of  these,  chronologically,  was  the  free-trade 
reglamento  of  October  12,  1778,  and  the  second  was  the  decree  of 
the  intendants,  December  4,  1786. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  anything  very  definite  about  the  ante- 
cedents of  either  of  these  laws,  or  to  understand  the  exact  motives 
which  led  to  their  promulgation.  The  life  of  Galvez  has  yet  to 
be  written  and  the  ordinary  sources  of  information  for  the  re- 
forms of  the  reign  of  Charles  III  have  not  yet  been  made  to  con- 
tribute the  information  needed  on  these  points.  Florida  Blanca  's 
well-known  Instruction  Reservada  refers  to  these  measures  as 
among  the  real  accomplishments  of  that  age  of  enlightened  des- 
potism, but  the  allusions  are  too  general  to  be  of  much  value.  It 
is  necessary  to  fall  back  upon  our  knowledge  of  the  general  pol- 
itical and  economic  conditions  of  Spanish  America  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  to  give  the  desired  light  on 
the  needs  which  this  legislation  was  intended  to  meet. 

There  is  some  reason  for  believing  that  both  these  ideas,  the 
idea  of  free  trade  between  Spain  and  her  colonies,  and  the  idea 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  249 

of  introducing  the  intendant  system  into  Mexico,  originated  in 
South  America.  At  any  rate,  something  very  like  the  free  trade 
decree  of  1778  was  temporarily  put  into  effect  by  CevaJJos  in 
1776  at  Buenos  Ayres;  and  the  intendants  were  employed  in 
South  America  about  four  years  before  they  were  introduced 
into  New  Spain.1  In  both  cases  the  experiments  must  have  been 
regarded  as  successful  before  they  were  made  a  permanent  part 
of  the  new  and  reformed  colonial  system.2  The  first-hand  in- 
formation which  Galvez  possessed  of  the  needs  of  New  Spain 
makes  its  reasonably  certain  that  both  these  laws  were  made  to 
apply  there  only  after  a  settled  conviction  that  they  would  prove 
beneficial  to  that  country. 

Because  these  reforms  were  so  sweeping  in  their  general  char- 
acter and  were  applied  to  so  extended  an  area,  it  has  been  easy 
for  writers  to  fall  into  error  regarding  their  real  purpose.  Their 
intent  was  undoubtedly  to  secure  a  more  efficient  government  for 
the  colonies  and  to  improve  condiditions  of  life  there  for  all 
classes  of  the  inhabitants,  but  always  incidentally  to  the  increas- 
ing prosperity  of  Spain  and  the  greatness  of  the  empire.  There  is 
no  evidence  whatever  that  any  reform  was  intended  for  the 
fundamental  abuse  which  was  afterwards  remedied  by  the  col- 
onies becoming  independent.  This  fundamental  abuse  was  the 
directing  of  all  things  governmental  in  the  colonies  to  the  interest 
of  Spain  and  a  very  small  Spanish  aristocracy  in  America,  in- 
stead of  to  the  interest  of  Spain  and  all  the  Spanish-American 
population  regardless  of  race,  color,  or  social  conditon.  The 
general  efficiency  of 'the  administration  was  no  doubt  improved, 
but  its  general  objects  remained  the  same,  and  it  is  doubtful  if 
the  native  population  was  essentially  better  off  in  1800  than  it 
had  been  a  century  before. 


1  Although  I  have  made  the  statement  that  the  intendants  were  tried 
in  South  America  before  they  were  introduced  into  Spain,  it  is  also  true 
that  there  was  an  intendant  at  Havana  before  there  was  one  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  so  that  in  one  sense  it  might  be*  proper  to  say  that  the  intendants 
were  first  tried  in  Cuba  before  they  wei&e  introduced  on  the  mainland. 

2  For  an  analysis  of  the  decree  of  the  intendants  which  was  put  into 
effect  in  Buenos  Ayres,  see  the  work  by  Quesada,  referred  to  in  the 
bibliography. 


250          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

The  first  and  most  notable  of  the  reforms  usually  credited  to 
Galvez  was  that  relating  to  the  commercial  relations  of  Spain 
and  her  American  colonies.  Judging  from  the  whole  tone  of 
Spanish  legislation  even  at  that  time,  it  seems  more  likely  that 
the  object  of  this  reform  was  not  so  much  the  benefit  of  the 
colonies  as  of  the  mother  country,  and  although  usually  thought 
of  as  a  measure  bringing  relief  to  the  colonies,  it  was  quite  as 
much  a  relief  to  Spain  herself. 

The  process  of  removing  the  various  restrictions  on  trade  be- 
tween Spain  and  America  was  a  slow  one  and  by  no  means  accom- 
plished at  one  stroke  by  the  issuance  of  any  one  law.  These  later 
changes  were  foreshadowed  as  early  as  1718,  when  the  Casa  de 
Contratacion  was  removed  from  Seville  to  Cadiz.  Later  on  the 
old  fleet  system  was  abandoned  and  a  disposition  was  shown  to 
relax  the  artificial  restraint  on  trade.  About  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  a  number  of  new  ports  of  entry  were 
created  in  Spain,  and  in  1776  Viceroy  Cevallos  at  Buenos  Ayres 
threw  open  that  port  to  the  trade  of  all  Spanish  vessels.  By 
this  time  there  was  no  one  who  had  a  good  word  to  say  for  the 
old  system,  unless  we  except  a  few  merchants  in  the  city  of  Cadiz 
who  enjoyed  certain  monopolies  and  privileges  under  it.  Con- 
sequently, the  way  having  been  prepared  by  those  previous 
changes  for  a  definite  break  with  the  old  system,  there  was  little 
difficulty  in  putting  into  effect  the  great  reglamento  of  October 
12, 1778.8 

This  reglamento  contained,  in  its  fifty-five  articles,  a  state- 
ment of  the  new  rules  and  regulations  governing  the  trade  of 
the  mother  country  and  the  colonies,  both  in  America  and  the 
Philippines,  and  in  the  aranceles  appended  after  these  articles 
were  given  the  schedules  that  were  to  go  into  effect  under  the  new 
dispensation.  The  whole  document  is  so  interesting  in  the  light 


s  There  are  two  copies  of  this  reglamento  in  the  Bancroft  Library  of 
the  University  of  California,  one  in  the  twelve-volume  set  of  6rdenes  y 
Cedulas  Beales,  and  the  other  bound  separately.  Important  as  this  docu- 
ment is,  it  has  never  been  incorporated  in  any  of  the  three  great  collec- 
tions of  the  Documentos  ineditos.  It  ought  to  be  supplemented  by  many 
other  explanatory  documents  of  a  much  later  date  in  order  that  the  full 
effects  of  the  new  attempt  at  freer  trade  may  be  understood,  as  for 
example  Branciforte  to  Paz,  Oct.  27,  1796.  Also  Revilla  Gigedo  to  Valdez. 
Feb.  28,  1790. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  251 

it  throws  on  the  trade  relations  of  the  period  after  1778,  and  is 
so  essential  to  any  clear  ideas  of  the  meaning  of  the  changes 
wrought  at  that  time,  that  a  short  summary  of  its  contents  seems 
necessary. 

After  the  fashion  of  most  royal  documents  issued  in  Spain,  the 
reglamento  begins  with  a  prefatory  declaration  of  the  intent  and 
purpose  of  the  king  in  promulgating  it.  The  first  article  plunges 
in  medias  res  with  a  statement  of  the  qualifications  which  a  ship 
must  have  in  order  to  be  allowed  to  trade  with  the  Indies. 
Normally  only  Spanish  vessels,  built  in  the  country,  were  to  be 
given  these  privileges,  but  an  opportunity  was  offered  to  Spanish 
merchants  to  acquire  foreign-built  ships  and  operate  them  in 
the  colonial  trade.  However,  every  encouragement  was  to  be 
given  to  those  built  at  home,  and  this  purpose  was  stated  in 
Article  n.  Of  similar  nature  were  the  regulations  in  Article  ra, 
in  regard  to  the  crews  of  the  ships  and  their  nationality. 

The  next  two  articles  constitute  a  small  group  by  themselves, 
and  declare  what  are  to  be  the  puertos  habilitados  in  Spain, 
Balearic  Isles,  and  the  Canaries,  as  well  as  in  America.  This 
multiplication  of  the  harbors  that  might  really  receive  ships  was 
one  of  the  most  important  provisions  of  the  laws,  and  struck  a 
blow  at  the  monopoly  held  hitherto  by  a  half-dozen  sea-ports,  like 
Cadiz,  Santander,  Seville,  Vera  Cruz,  and  Puerto  Cabello. 

The  succeeding  articles  were  not  arranged  in  any  discernible 
logical  order  but  can  be  grouped  together,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience, in  the  following  manner.  Numbers  seven,  eight,  nine, 
thirty-six,  forty,  and  forty-six  are  given  over  to  defining  methods 
to  be  pursued  in  the  actual  management  of  the  ships,  such  as 
the  obtaining  of  clearance  papers  and  preparing  ships'  mani- 
fests, sending  the  vessels  back  on  the  return  voyage,  securing  the 
cargoes  in  America,  releasing  goods  held  in  bond,  and  arranging 
for  the  sailing  of  ships  in  company  for  mutual  protection  and 
assistance.  In  this  same  group,  perhaps,  ought  to  be  included 
number  twenty,  which  prescribed  the  latitude  allowed  a  captain 
in  putting  in  to  other  ports  than  the  one  demanded  by  his  clear- 
ance papers. 


252          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

Articles  six,  sixteen,  twenty-two,  twenty-four,  thirty-three, 
forty-eight,  and  fifty  dealt  with  certain  specific  encouragements 
which  the  king  granted  to  the  merchants  engaged  in  colonial 
trade.  These  took  the  form,  in  the  main,  of  a  reduction  of  port 
dues  and  taxes,  sometimes  affecting  the  ships  themselves  and 
sometimes  the  goods  they  carried.  For  example,  Article  xvi 
deals  with  the  reduction  of  taxes  on  vessels  bound  for  America, 
while  Article  xxn  grants  certain  abatements  of  duties  of  Spanish 
manufacture.  Articles  forty-eight  and  fifty  give  similar  encour- 
agement for  the  trade  with  Louisiana,  particularly  on  the  peltries 
exported  from  New  Orleans. 

Articles  ten,  eleven,  thirteen,  fourteen,  and  thirty  supplement 
the  laws  of  the  Indies  in  regard  to  the  licensing  of  persons  going 
to  America  and  provides  punishment  for  those  who  immigrated 
without  proper  authorization.  Adults  had  to  show  that  they 
were  of  good  character  and  were  going  to  the  colonies  for  legiti- 
mate business,  while  minors  had  to  secure  the  consent  of  their 
parents  or  guardians.  Among  other  things,  married  men  were 
required  to  secure  the  consent  of  their  wives  before  leaving  home. 
Article  xxx  further  directed  penalities  against  those  who  falsi- 
fied official  papers  of  any  kind,  or  trade-marks. 

The  remaining  articles  defy  any  attempt  at  classification  and 
so  must  be  put  down  simply  as  miscellaneous.  Some  dealt  with 
taxes  or  duties,  as  Article  xvn,  with  its  provisions  regarding 
port  dues  in  America.  Article  xn  made  it  illegal  for  a  ship  to 
attempt  the  return  voyage  from  America  without  first  having 
been  inspected  to  see  whether  it  was  seaworthy.  Article  xvin 
condemned  the  substitution  of  goods  of  foreign  manufacture  for 
those  from  Spain,  when  cargoes  were  being  prepared  for  the  out- 
ward voyage.  Article  xxi  dealt  with  the  increased  prices  which 
might  be  charged  for  goods  after  they  had  been  shipped  to 
America,  and  Article  xxxvm  prohibited  the  re-exportation  of 
goods  from  America  after  they  had  once  been  landed  there.  The 
only  other  article  that  need  be  referred  to  here  was  perhaps  the 
most  famous  of  them  all,  number  fifty-three,  which  called  for 
the  establishment  of  consulados  in  all  the  puertos  habilitados, 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  253 

where  those  institutions  did  not  already  exist.  As  this  article 
is  commented  on  at  some  length  in  chapter  iv,  no  attempt  will 
be  made  to  discuss  it  further. 

Although  the  summary  just  given  of  the  free-trade  reglamento 
is  not  detailed  enough  to  be  dignified  by  the  title  of  an  analysis, 
it  has  outlined  the  principal  points  found  in  the  document.  It 
may  seem  at  first  glance  as  if  this  decree  had  only  an  incidental 
relation  to  the  subject  of  the  government  of  the  viceroyalty  of 
New  Spain,  but  its  influence  on  all  the  colonies  was  so  great  that 
some  mention  of  it  could  scarcely  be  avoided  in  any  treatment 
of  the  viceregal  government,  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Practically  every  writer  whose  name  is  at  all  promi- 
nently identified  with  this  period  of  history  speaks  of  this  reform 
as  resulting  in  a  great  increase  of  trade.  No  authoritative  state- 
ment has  yet  been  made  of  all  the  results  flowing  from  this 
decree,  and  Hnmboldt's  discussion  of  it  in  his  Political  Essay 
on  New  Spain  still  remains  the  best  that  has  been  put  forth. 

The  following  considerations  will,  however,  go  far  toward 
explaining  why  the  Galvez  internal  reforms  appeared  just 
when  they  did-  In  the  first  place,  overwhelming  evidence 
had  been  brought  home  to  the  Spanish  crown  that  the  Indians 
throughout  the  New  World  were  in  an  extremely  unhappy  posi- 
tion. The  alarming  growth  of  drunkenness  and  various  forms  of 
debauchery,  such  as  the  elder  Revilla  Gigedo  described,  indicated 
something  like  despair  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  Mexican  popu- 
lation, while  the  prolonged  and  desperate  revolt  of  the  Peruvians 
under  Tupac  Amaru  gave  unmistakable  warning  that  a  danger 
point  had  been  reached  among  the  inflammable  subjects  of  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Indies.  In  the  second  place,  the  alarming 
example  set  by  the  English  American  colonies  had  at  least  made 
an  impression  in  Madrid,  and  even  if  there  seemed  no  immediate 
danger  of  a  Spanish-American  revolution,  the  attention  of  the 
Spanish  statesmen  was  turned  toward  the  colonies  as  never  before. 
In  the  third  place,  it  was  not  to  be  denied  that  the  viceroy  was 
grievously  overworked,  a  fact  which  must  have  been  patent  to 
the  man  who  had  been  for  so  many  years  the  visitor-general  to 


254  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

New  Spain.4  The  cutting  down  of  a  great  part  of  the  viceroy's 
duties,  which  was  the  first  effect  of  the  decree  of  the  intendants, 
could  scarcely  have  been  unintentional.  The  later  restoration  of 
a  great  part  of  these  lost  powers  brought  back  the  old  trouble, 
though  the  second  change  was  thought  necessary  for  other 
reasons.  Finally,  the  craze  for  uniformity  was  on  at  this  time 
in  the  government  of  Charles  m,  and  as  the  intendants  had  done 
very  well  in  Spain,  and  as  the  Americas  were  now  supposed  to 
be  civilized  up  to  a  nearly  equal  level,  the  extension  of  the 
system  of  government  by  the  intendant  could  seem  nothing  less 
than  the  obvious  thing  to  do. 

There  seems  no  better  way  of  arriving  at  a  real  knowledge  of 
exactly  what  the  decree  of  the  intendants  was,  than  to  make  a 
somewhat  extended  analysis  of  the  document  itself.  In  its 
printed  form  it  constitutes  a  large  volume  of  four  hundred  and 
ten  coarsely  printed  pages  and  with  an  indice  of  sixty  pages 
more.  It  is  a  much  more  voluminous  document  than  the  one 
issued  in  1749  for  the  intendants  of  Spain,  and  goes  into  great 
detail  regarding  the  duties  of  the  newly  created  officials.  Its 
full  title  is,  "Royal  Ordinance  for  the  Establishment  and  In- 
struction of  the  Intendants  of  the  Army  and  Province  in  the 
Kingdom  of  New  Spain."  The  whole  document  is  made  up  of 
a  preamble  and  three  hundred  and  six  articles  which  may  be 
grouped  as  follows :  The  first  fourteen  articles,  dealing  with  the 
intendant  system  as  a  whole,  and  defining  its  relation  to  the 


•*  Eevilla  Gigedo,  art.  837.  After  1793  there  were  actually  only  eleven 
intendants,  for  by  the  royal  order  of  April  18  of  that  year  the  intendancy 
of  Mexico  proper  was  united  to  the  viceregal  office.  This  undid  in  a 
measure  the  relief  to  the  viceroy  which  the  decree  of  the  intendants 
promised  originally  to  give.  Eevilla  Gigedo  seemed  to  imply  that  it 
would  have  been  possible  for  the  viceroy  to  act  as  intendant  as  well,  if  he 
were  only  given  four  additional  officials  to  assist  him.  It  would  seem, 
then,  that  the  viceroy  was  quite  as  busy  a  man  after  1793  as  he  was 
before  17861.  Marquina,  writing  in  1803,  urged  very  strongly  the  restora- 
tion of  the  intendant-corregidor  for  the  province  of  Mexico,  and  he  com- 
municated his  views  to  Madrid  in  letters  of  July  27,  1800,  and  June  26, 
1802.  He  complained  that  it  was  a  fearful  waste  of  time  and  energy 
to  force  the  viceroy  to  burden  himself  "with  the  numerous  petty  details 
which  this  intendancy  gives  rise  to."  Most  of  these  duties  could  be 
discharged  by  a  subordinate  official,  and  if  this  were  done  more  time 
would  be  had  for  many  real  important  matters  of  policy  which  were 
then  neglected.  Arts.  308-310. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  255 

viceroy  and  the  other  officials  of  the  country ;  articles  fifteen  to 
fifty-six  inclusive,  dealing  with  the  causa  de  jusiicia;  articles 
fifty-seven  to  seventy-four  inclusive,  dealing  with  the  causa  de 
policia;  articles  seventy-five  to  two  hundred  and  forty-nine  in- 
clusive, dealing  with  the  causa  de  hacienda;  articles  two  hundred 
and  fifty  to  three  hundred  and  five  inclusive,  dealing  with  the 
causa  de  guerra:  and  article  three  hundred  and  six  concluding 
the  document  with  the  statement  that  it  has  the  force  of  law  and 
revoking  all  other  regulations  in  conflict  therewith. 

The  preamble  or  enacting  clause  of  this  law  is  a  kind  of 
exordium  and  statement  of  the  general  purposes  for  which  the 
decree  was  intended.  It  runs  as  follows:  "Moved  by  the 
paternal  love  which  all  my  vassals  merit,  even  the  most  distant, 
and  by  the  lively  desire  which  I  have  felt  since  my  elevation  to 
the  throne  to  make  uniform  the  government  of  the  great  Empire 
which  God  has  confided  to  me,  and  to  place  in  good  order, 
felicity,  and  defense  my  extensive  dominions  of  the  two  Americas, 
I  have  resolved,  with  very  well  founded  information  and  mature 
examination,  to  establish  in  the  Kingdom  of  New  Spain  intend- 
ants  of  the  Army  and  Province  in  order  that,  endowed  with 
sufficient  authority  and  salaries,  they  may  govern  those  peoples 
and  inhabitants  in  peace  and  justice  in  those  things  which  are 
confided  to  them  in  this  instruction.,  that  they  may  take  care  of 
its  police,  and  maintain  the  legitimate  interests  of  my  royal 
treasury  with  that  integrity,  zeal,  and  vigilance  which  the  wise 
laws  of  the  Indies  prescribed,  and  the  two  royal  ordinances 
which  my  august  Father,  Philip  Fifth,  and  my  beloved  brother, 
Ferdinand  Sixth,  published  on  July  4th,  1718,  and  October  14th, 
1749;  whose  prudent  and  just  rules  I  desire  to  be  observed 
exactly  by  the  intendants  of  the  aforesaid  Kingdom  with  those 
additions  and  restrictions  which  will  be  explained  in  the  articles 
of  this  ordinance  and  instruction."  This  extensive  quotation  is 
here  incorporated  in  the  text  because  it  shows  the  official  and 
formal  statement  of  the  purposes  back  of  the  law.  The  actual 
provisions  appear  in  the  later  three  hundred  and  six  articles. 


256          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

The  first  article  begins  with  the  division  of  "that  empire," 
meaning  the  viceroyalty,  into  twelve  intendancies,  excluding  the 
Californias.  Each  intendancy  was  to  be  known  by  its  capital 
city,  where  the  intendant  was  to  reside.  One  of  the  said  intend- 
ants  was  to  have  the  special  title  of  Intendente  General  de 
Ejercito  y  Provincia,  and  was  to  reside  in  the  capital  city  of  the 
viceroyalty.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  intendant  was  to  be  known 
as  superintendent e  general  de  real  hacienda  and  was  to  be  the 
immediate  superior  of  the  other  intendants,  who  were  to  be 
known  simply  as  intendentes  de  provincias.  The  capitals  of  the 
provincial  intendancies  were  Puebla,  Vera  Cruz,  Merida,  Oaxaca, 
Valladolid,  Guanajuato,  San  Luis  Potosi,  Guadalajara,  Zacatecas, 
Durango,  and  Arispe  (for  Sonora  and  Sinaloa).  The  king 
reserved  to  himself  the  nomination  of  all  these  intendants,  com- 
mitting to  them  the  "immediate  government  and  protection  of 
my  peoples. ' ' 

The  second  article  reserved  to  the  viceroy  all  his  usual  general 
powers,  but  gave  to  the  superintendent  e  the  entire  control  of  the 
real  hacienda.  Article  m  defined  still  more  accurately  the  rela- 
tion of  these  two  highest  officials  one  to  another  and  to  their 
subordinates.  Article  iv  determined  the  composition  of  the  Junta 
Superior  de  Real  Hacienda.  This  body,  which  was  easily,  next 
to  the  viceroy  himself,  the  highest  single  authority  of  New 
Spain,  was  made  up  of  the  following  officials:  after  the  super- 
intendent, who  was  ex-officio  president,  was  the  regent  of  the 
audiencia,  the  fiscal  of  the  hacienda,  the  senior  member,  ministro, 
of  the  tribunal  of  accounts,  and  the  senior  accountant,  or  treas- 
urer-general of  the  hacienda.  The  secretary  of  the  superin- 
tendent's office  was  always  to  be  present.  Article  v  simply 
arranged  for  substitutes,  when  for  any  reason  a  regular  member 
of  this  junta  had  to  be  absent.  The  sessions  and  duties  of  the 
junta  were  defined  in  Article  vi,  and  it  was  stipulated  that  the 
sole  intermediary  between  it  and  the  crown  was  the  Despacho 
Universal  de  Indias,  or  the  colonial  office  in  Madrid.  Matters  of 
justice  growing  out  of  ordinary  governmental  disputes,  or  relat- 
ing to  the  causas,  or  departments,  of  police  and  government, 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  257 

were  to  be  appealed  over  the  attendant's  head  to  the  various 
audiencias.  The  government  in  matters  political  of  the  large 
cities  such  as  Puebla,  Oaxaca,  Vera  Cruz,  Valladolid,  Guanajuato. 
San  Luis  Potosi  Zaeatecas.  and  Mexico,  as  well  as  the  outlying 
provinces  of  Xueva  Viscaya,  Sonora,  and  Sinaloa.  was  to  he 
given  to  their  respective  intendants,  and  their  corregidores  and 
alcaldes  mayores  were  ipso  facto  suppressed.  Article  vn  further 
provided  a  basis  for  the  relations  of  the  intendants  and  the  other 
officials  of  the  king,  such  as  the  military  commandants  of  the 
frontier  provinces. 

Article  vm  stated  that  with  the  exception  of  those  of  Mexico, 
Guadalajara.  Arispe,  Merida,  and  Vera  Cruz,  the  intendants 
were  to  exercise  the  royal  patronage,  but  in  the  above-mentioned 
jurisdictions  the  viceroy,  the  regente,  the  comandante  general  of 
the  frontiers,  and  the  captain-general,  respectively,  were  to  retain 
that  sovereign  power.  For  some  reason  or  other  the  intendant 
of  Puebla  was  to  have  the  patronage  for  the  intendancy  of  Vera 
Cruz.  The  rulers  of  Puebla  and  Nuevo  Leon  were  to  exercise  the 
royal  patronage  as  subdelegates  of  the  viceroy. 

All  the  other  corregidores  and  alcaldes  mayores,  besides  those 
expressly  mentioned  in  Article  vn,  were  by  Article  ix  suppressed 
and  their  duties  united  with  the  others  possessed  by  the  intend- 
ants. Also,  an  attempt  was  made  in  this  same  article  to  remove 
one  of  the  standing  anomolies  in  the  administration  of  justice  by 
depriving  the  descendants  of  Cortes  of  their  special  rights  to 
corregimientos  and  atcaldias  mayores,  or  at  least  of  continuing 
them  only  temporarily  till  some  other  reward  could  be  invented 
as  a  substitute. 

By  Article  x  it  was  provided  that  the  civil  and  military  gov- 
ernors of  Yucatan,  Tabasco,  Vera  Cruz,  Acapulco,  Nuevo  Leon. 
Xuevo  Santander.  Coahuila,  Texas,  and  New  Mexico,  were  to 
retain  their  jurisdiction  in  matters  of  justice  and  police,  except 
in  the  handling  of  the  revenues  and  public  property  of  the  cities. 
The  commandant,  castettano,  of  Acapuleo  was  to  have  authority 
only  over  the  city  and  its  immediate  environs,  but  as  soon  as  the 
intendant  system  was  well  enough  organized  to  permit  the  selec- 


258          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

tion  of  subdelegates,  the  latter  were  to  be  introduced  everywhere 
excepting  in  Yucatan,  Vera  Cruz,  and  Campeche.5 

In  Article  xi  the  provision  for  the  alcaldes  ordinaries  is  found. 
With  the  wiping  away  of  the  old  corregidores  and  alcaldes 
mayores,  the  intendants  became  the  justicias  mayores  de  prov- 
incias,  but  they  were  not  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  alcaldes, 
who  were  in  reality  to  become  their  chief  agents  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice.  All  cities  and  villages  with  a  Spanish  popu- 
lation of  sufficient  size  (no  definite  number  being  specified)  were 
to  elect  two  alcaldes  within  a  year  after  the  decree  of  the 
intendants  was  put  into  effect.  If  in  any  place  there  was  no 
ayuntamiento  to  do  the  electing,  the  governors  or  intendants 
were  to  make  the  appointments  conformable  to  the  spirit  of  the 
law.  These  alcaldes  were  to  have  a  biennial  term,  one  retiring 
every  year,  and  the  senior  or  holdover  judge  was  to  instruct  the 
newly  elected  one  in  the  duties  of  his  office. 

In  every  Indian  village  which  was  the  capital  of  a  partido, 
or  subdivision  of  an  intendancy,  and  in  which  there  had  been 
a  lieutenant  of  the  governor,  a  corregidor,  or  an  alcalde  mayor, 
there  was  to  be  placed  a  new  official  called  a  subdelegate,  who 
was  to  have  jurisdiction  in  the  four  causjis  (justice,  police, 
hacienda,  and  war)  and  who  must  be  a  Spaniard.  This  official, 
after  bonds  had  been  furnished,  was  to  be  responsible  for  the 
good  order  and  obedience  of  the  natives  of  his  district.  These 
subdelegates  had  to  be  formally  appointed  by  the  intendants 
exclusively,6  unless  special  exception  was  made,  and  they  were 


5  The  subdelegates  were  a  very  important  part  of  the  new  body  of 
officials  created  by  the  ordinance,  being,  in  the  language  of  one  of  the 
viceroys,  "the  instruments  through  which  the  provisions  (of  the  decree 
of  1786)  were  to  be  put  into  effect  and  upon  which  must  depend  in  the 
beginning  the  good  government  of  the  small  towns."  These  subdele- 
gates were  to  exist  along  side  of  the  alcaldes  ordinarios.  Eeviila  Gigedo, 
art.  847  and  848. 

« This  provision  was  changed  considerably  by  the  cedulas  reales  of 
March  28th,  and  October  25,  1787,  which  gave  the  viceroy  a  share  in 
the  selection  of  the  subdelegates.  Later,  by  the  royal  order  of  October 
7,  1788,  it  was  declared  that  no  subdelegate  might  be  appointed  without 
the  consent  of  the  viceroy.  In  practice,  the  intendants  proposed  three 
names  from  which  the  viceroy  chose  one,  or  even  one  not  of  the  three, 
in  which  latter  case  his  reasons  had  to  be  submitted  to  the  king.  Kevilla 
Gigedo,  art.  859  and  860. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  259 

not  to  be  subject  to  taxes.  In  those  districts  where  the  intend- 
ants  did  not  possess  plenary  powers,  the  subdelegates  were  to  be 
chosen  by  agreement  between  the  intendant  and  the  governor, 
but  in  no  case  were  any  of  these  officials  or  combinations  of  them 
to  make  any  more  repartimientos  under  the  severest  penalty.  In 
case  the  intendant  should  desire  to  create  new  subdelegaeies  he 
was  to  refer  the  matter  to  the  junta  superior  de  hacienda,  and 
if  consent  were  given  by  that  body,  notice  of  the  proceeding  was 
to  be  sent  to  the  king  by  the  via  reservada  de  las  Indias.  This 
meant  communicating  direct  with  the  Minister  of  the  Indies 
instead  of  through  the  Council  of  the  Indies. 

In  spite  of  the  above  provisions  in  regard  to  the  subdelegates, 
it  was  not  intended  that  the  privilege  of  holding  office  in  the 
Indian  settlements  should  be  reserved  exclusively  for  Spaniards. 
In  Article  XTTT  the  will  of  the  king  was  declared  to  be  that  the 
old  rights  and  customs  of  the  Indians  be  preserved,  and  that 
annual  elections  be  held  for  the  various  local  officials,  in  order 
to  carry  out  the  economic  side  of  the  local  government,  "para 
su  regimen  puramente  economico."  The  chief  duty  of  these 
officials  was  to  collect  the  tax  known  as  the  tribute,  which  was 
levied  on  every  male  Indian  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
fifty.7  In  order  to  avoid  disputes  and  disturbances  among  the 
natives  at  these  elections,  it  was  decreed  that  they  be  held  under 
the  presidency  of  the  subdelegate,  or  some  other  Spaniard. 

The  provisions  just  referred  to  were  amplified  in  Article  xiv 
to  this  effect.  When  the  elections  were  completed  at  the  time 
and  manner  prescribed,  the  subdelegate,  or  alcalde  ordinario,  had 
to  report  to  the  intendant  or  the  governor,  as  the  case  might  be, 
for  his  approval.  In  the  choice  of  these  lowest  officials  prefer- 
ence was  to  be  given  to  those  who  understood  the  Spanish 
language  and  to  those  who  had  distinguished  themselves,  "in 
a  commendable  application  to  agriculture  and  industry."  In 
this  way  it  was  hoped  that  by  gentle  and  opportune  efforts  the 


7  The  tribute  of  the  Spaniard  was  a  capitation  tax  instead  of  a  hat 
tax,  as  in  parts  of  South  Africa,  or  a  tax  payable  in  agricultural  produce, 
as  in  Java,  or  a  land  tax,  as  in  India. 


260          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

Indians  would  be  inclined  to  take  an  interest  in  the  elections, 
devote  themselves  more  earnestly  to  industry,  and  learn  to  speak 
Spanish.8 

The  first  of  the  four  main  divisions  into  which  the  work  of 
the  intendants  was  divided  was  called  by  the  Spaniards  the  causa 
de  justicia*  This  was  scarcely  the  first  in  importance  of  the 
intendant  's  duties,  but  as  it  comes  first  in  the  Ordinance,  it  will  be 
given  first  place  here.  In  all  his  work  the  intendant  was  assisted 
and  advised  by  an  officer  called  the  assessor,  asesor,  who  was  not 
only  expected  to  be  his  advisor  under  normal  conditions,  but  was 
to  take  the  intendant 's  place  temporarily  in  case  of  death,  sick- 
ness, or  other  disability.10  This  asesor  was  to  be  a  lawyer  and 
was  to  act  regularly  as  the  chief  civil  and  criminal  judge  of  his 
district,  which  meant  the  intendancy.  The  asesor  of  the  inten- 
dente  general  at  the  capital  was  likewise  to  succeed  his  chief 
with  full  powers,  in  case  of  the  latter 's  incapacity  to  serve.11 
The  assessors  were  appointed  in  the  following  manner.  The 
candidate  had  first  to  be  approved  after  examination  by  an 
audiencia,  and  then  three  names  were  submitted  for  a  given 
office  by  the  Council  of  the  Indies.  One  of  these  three  was  chosen 
by  the  king,  for  a  term  of  five  years,  with  a  salary  fixed  at 
twenty-five  hundred  pesos  a  year  besides  perquisites.  They  were 
not  removable  except  for  cause  shown  and  the  approval  of  the 
king  or  the  Council  of  the  Indies.12  They  might,  however,  be 
suspended  by  the  junta  superior,  on  the  representation  of  their 
intendant.  Appeals  from  the  decisions  of  the  asesores  were  to  be 
taken  to  the  audiencia  of  the  province.13 

The  duties  of  the  intendants  themselves  as  head  of  the  depart- 
ment of  justice  were  so  numerous  as  almost  to  defy  classification, 


s  Villarroel  's  great  objection  to  this  whole  Ordinance  was  that  it  did 
not  do  enough  for  the  natives. 

»  The  Spanish  words  causa  and  ramo  mean  division,  branch,  or  depart- 
ment. The  former  was  applied  to  a  branch  of  the  government,  while  the 
latter  was  applied  to  a  government  monopoly,  as  the  ramo  de  tabaco. 

10  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  15. 

iil&id.,  art.  16. 

12  Ibid.,  art.  18. 

is  Ibid.,  art.  19. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  261 

• 

but  the  following  summary  will  be  attempted.  'They  were  first 
of  all,  as  successors  to  the  corregidores,  mayors  of  the  capitals  of 
the  intendancies,  and  as  such,  of  course,  presided  over  the 
ayuntan\ienio  and  at  all  public  municipal  functions.1*  They  were 
to  be  in  a  general  way  responsible  for'the  enforcement  of  the  law 
within  their  province.15  In  particular  they  were  to  watch  over 
the  native  population,  seeing  to  it  that  the  local  officials  did  not 
tyrannize  over  the  Indians  or  act  with  "prejudice,  p&ssion,  or 
vengeance."18  One  of  the  most  common  abuses  to  be  guarded 
against  among  their  subordinates  was  extortion,  in  the  form  of 
collecting  excessive  taxes.11  They  were  expected  to  make  a  tour 
of  inspection  of  their  districts,18  with  the  purpose  not  merely  of 
seeing  that  the  laws  were  enforced,  but  of  promoting  agriculture, 
commerce,  and  the  development  of  the  mines.  If  it  were  impos-. 
sible  or  inexpedient  to  make  these  official  visits  in  person,  they 
might  send  subdelegates  in  their  stead.19 

With  the  object  of  securing  greater  uniformity  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  municipal  funjds  of  the  Spanish  cities  and  towns, 
and  also  of  the  communal  property  of  the  Indian  pueblos,  the 
administration  of  these  matters  was  referred  primarily  to  the 
junta  superior  of  Mexico.20  Whatever  this  council  plight  decide 
was  then  to  be  carried  into  effect  by  the  intendants  as  its  agents. 
Also  the  central  office  of  the  general  auditing  department  of  the 
real  hacienda,  the  contaduria  general,  was  to  remain  in  the  City 


«  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  20. 
is  I&id.,  art.  21. 
i«/Wd.,  art.  22. 
"  Ibid.,  art.  23. 

i«  Ibid.,  art.  26.  Also  Bevilla  Gigedo,  arts.  844-846.  The  viceroy  ex- 
plained in  these  articles  why  it  was  that  this  provision  of  the  law  of 
the  intendants  was  not  fully  carried  out.  In  spite  of  his  repeated  orders 
for  its  observance,  only  the  intendants  of  the  following  provinces  com- 
plied by  the  year  1794:  Puebla,  Valladolid,  Guadalajara,  Yucatan,  Zaca- 
tecas.  San  Luis  Potosi,  Sonora  and  Guanajuato.  The  two  chief  reasons 
why  the  law  was  not  more  thoroughly  observed  were  the  expense  and 
the  difficulty  of  the  intendants '  leaving  their  regular  posts  for  so  long  a  time. 
The  viceroy  believed,  however,  that  great  good  would  result  from  these  tours 
of  inspection. 

i»  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  27. 

20  Ibid.,  art.  28. 


262          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

of  Mexico  as  it  had  been  established  by  the  visitor-general  in 
1766.  This  department,  besides  doing  the  work  of  auditing  as 
we  understand  it  at  the  present  time,  was  to  prepare  the  various 
orders  and  despatches  necessary  to  carry  out  the  decisions  of  the 
junta  superior.  The  head  of  the  auditing  department,  contador 
general  de  propios  y  arbitrios,  was  to  be  the  permanent  secretary 
of  this  junta,  and  the  person  to  whom  the  intendants  made  their 
report  on  the  subject  of  municipal  finance.21  At  the  beginning 
of  each  year  the  intendants  were  expected  to  send  in  a  complete 
statement  of  the  revenues  and  expenses  of  their  intendancies  and 
these  reports  were  to  be  tabulated  and  interpreted  in  the  auditing 
department  before  they  were  submitted  to  the  junta  superior  and 
to  the  authorities  at  Madrid.22 

The  final  clause  of  the  decree  of  the  intendants  which  relates 
directly  to  the  administration  of  justice  is  an  exhortation  for 
them  to  have  special  care  that  the  decisions  and  judgments  of 
the  subdelegates  and  minor  officials  should  be  in  conformity  with 
the  law  and  that  they  be  not  allowed  to  fall  into  corrupt  prac- 
tices. That  this  might  be  done  the  more  efficiently  the  intendants 
were  directed  to  correspond  with  the  regents  of  the  audiencias.23 
Finally,  all  matters  worthy  of  a  report  at  all  were  to  be  referred 
normally  to  the  viceroy  and  the  superior  tribunals  of  New  Spain ; 
but  in  case  of  emergency  or  special  need  the  intendants  were 
authorized  to  correspond  directly  with  the  king  through  the 
Minister  to  the  Indies,  indicating  in  each  case  whether  a  report 
was  also  made  to  the  aforesaid  authorities  of  New  Spain.2*  This 
provision  for  direct  communication  between  the  intendants  and 
the  king  concludes  that  part  of  the  decree  of  the  intendants 
relating  to  the  causa  de  justicia,  and  it  is  now  necessary  to  take 
up  the  duties  of  the  intendants  under  the  causa  de  policia. 


21  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  29. 

22  Ibid.,  art.  33. 

23  Ibid.,  art.  55. 

2*  Ibid.,  art.  56.  The  viceroys  occasionally  voiced  their  jealousy  of 
the  independence  of  the  intendants  in  their  correspondence  with  Madrid. 
Branciforte,  169  Keservada,  Sept.  28,  1795. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  263 

The  department  of  policia  was  quite  as  miscellaneous  in  char- 
acter as  the  department  of  justice  and  must  have  been  a  kind 
of  catch-all  for  the  legislators  who  framed  the  decree  of  the 
intendants.25  The  first  article  under  this  division  calls  for  the 
preparation  of  maps  of  the  separate  intendancies.  These  maps 
were  to  contain  all  kinds  of  topographical  details,  such  as  moun- 
tains, forests,  rivers,  and  lakes,  as  well  as  the  boundaries  of  the 
provinces,  and  this  work  was  to  be  committed  to  qualified 
engineers.2*  They  were  also  to  furnish  information  on  the 
climate  and  productions  of  the  various  districts;  the  character 
of  the  rivers  with  reference  to  a  possible  improvement  of  them 
for  navigation ;  the  places  where  bridges  and  aqueducts  might  be 
built;  and  the  general  betterment  of  internal  communications, 
together  with  the  harbors  for  foreign  commerce.  These  reports 
were  intended  to  be  a  later  basis  for  the  actual  reforms  to  be 
carried  out  by  the  rulers  of  New  Spain." 

Although  the  well-being  of  the  whole  population  was  charged 
upon  the  intendants  in  the  causa  de  justicia,  there  was  a  special 
injunction  also  to  look  after  the  public  morals,  in  Articles  fifty- 
nine  and  sixty,  under  the  causa  de  policia.  The  subordinate 
officials,  juices  subalternos,  were  expected  to  keep  a  watch  on  the 
customs  and  mode  of  life  of  the  populace,  to  castigate  the  idle 
and  evilly  inclined,  and  all  those  whose  vices  "disfigured  the 
fair  face  of  the  republic."28  Under  no  pretext,  however,  was  this 
provision  of  the  law  to  be  made  an  excuse  for  prying  into  the 
private  and  domestic  affairs  of  the  inhabitants.  The  care  of  the 
idle,  criminal,  and  the  indigent  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
intendants.  Vagabonds  and  beggars  who  were  physically  capable 
were  to  be  sent  to  work  on  the  government  roads,  or  to  the 
poorhouses,  according  to  their  strength.29  The  criminals  of  the 
community  were  to  be  rounded  up  and  sent  to  prison  or  to  the 


25  The  word  policia  is  not  easily  translated.  Either  of  the  English 
words  police  or  policy  might  be  used  for  it,  but  the  former  has  been 
chosen  arbitrarily  to  represent  its  meaning. 

2«  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  57. 

"  Ibid.,  art.  58. 

2*  Ibid.,  art.  59. 

2»  Ibid.,  art.  60. 


264          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

army  or  navy,  whichever  seemed  best.  The  most  hardened  cases 
were  to  be  sent  to  the  mines  and  the  presidios  as  ordinary  convicts. 

Practically  all  the  remaining  articles  under  the  causa  de 
policia  deal  with  the  encouragement  of  industry  in  its  various 
forms.  Agriculture  in  its  widest  sense  was  in  no  wise  to  be 
neglected  by  the  intendants.  Cultivation  of  the  crops  that  were 
supposed  to  be  especially  suited  to  Mexican  soil  and  climate,  and 
which  would  be  least  objectionable  through  competition  to  the 
Spaniards  in  Europe,  was  to  be  increased  by  every  means  pos- 
sible. The  collection  of  cochineal,30  which  was  at  that  time  one 
of  the  declining  native  industries  because  of  the  wasteful  methods 
involved  by  the  gatherers  of  the  insects,  the  raising  of  flax, 
hemp,  cotton,  and  silk,  were  all  to  receive  government  aid.31  A 
greater  utilization  of  the  water  supply  of  the  country  for  irri- 
gation, the  improving  of  breeds  of  stock,  and  the  conservation  of 
the  forests  were  all  placed  under  the  same  category  as  worthy 
of  royal  protection.32  The  public  lands  were  to  be  divided  up 
into  small  tracts  and  sold  to  the  natives  at  reasonable  prices  in 
order  that  they  might  be  put  to  the  best  use  and  a  system  of 
agriculture  based  upon  small  holdings  and  peasant  proprietor- 
ship be  developed.  The  general  level  of  property  values  was  to 
be  raised  by  the  building  of  roads  and  bridges  and  a  better 
management,  while  inland  transportation  was  to  be  furthered  by 
increasing  the  general  use  of  wheel  vehicles.33 

Everything  that  was  prescribed  for  the  country  was  to  be 
done,  as  nearly  as  conditions  would  permit,  for  the  cities.34  What 
the  governor  or  viceroy  was  for  the  City  of  Mexico,  the  pro- 
vincial intendants  were  to  be  for  the  towns  and  cities  other  than 
the  capital.  This  implied  a  general  oversight  of  the  building 
and  repair  of  streets,  public  buildings  and  churches,  water 
supply,  and  fire  protection,  and  all  other  municipal  activities.35 


so  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  61. 
si  Ibid.,  art.  62. 

32  Ibid.,  art.  63. 

33  Ord.  of  Int.,  arts.  64  and  65. 

34  Ibid.,  art.  67. 

ss  Ibid.,  arts.  68  and  70. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  2oo 

Finally  the  intendants  were  to  send  in  crop  reports  four  times  a 
year  for  the  information  of  the  viceroy  and  the  central  govern- 
ment, and  administer  the  pnblie  granaries  in  their  own  prov- 
inces.** The  protection  of  the  coinage  and  monetary  system  from 
the  different  abuses  to  which  it  was  liable  was  the  last  injunction 
of  that  part  of  the  decree  which  dealt  with  policia. 

That  division  of  the  intendant's  duties  which  was  third  in 
order  in  the  Ordinance  was  easily  first  in  importance.  There 
seemed  no  limit  to  the  variety  of  things  which  the  intendants 
were  expected  to  do,  but  if  some  one  group  of  their  functions  had 
to  be  singled  out  as  being  of  the  most  consequence,  it  would 
undoubtedly  be  that  group  which  is  entitled  the  causa  de 
hacienda.  It  was  in  this  department  that  they  were  expected  to 
bring  about  such  reforms  as  would  put  new  life  and  vigor  into 
the  whole  internal  administration  of  the  viceroyalty  and  confer 
extensive  benefits  on  the  whole  population  of  New  Spain.*7  With 
these  facts  in  mind,  it  is  quite  possible  to  see  the  reason  for  the 
detail  into  which  the  law  descended  on  this  subject. 

From  the  first  articles  of  this  chapter  of  the  law  it  would 
appear  that  the  intendant  was  primarily  a  judge  in  all  cases 
touching  in  any  way  the  royal  treasury.  All  other  tribunals  were 
expressly  forbidden  to  have  anything  to  do  with  such  cases,  and 
appeals  over  the  intendant's  head  were  to  be  taken  to  the  junto 
superior  at  Mexico,  itself  a  court  of  the  department  of  the 
tiadenda.**  Even  lawsuits  growing  out  of  the  management  of 
the  monopolies  of  tobacco,  pulque,  powder,  and  playing  cards, 
and  alcabala.  although  under  a  separate  administration,  were  to 
be  judged  in  the  first  instance  by  the  intendant  or  his  sub- 
ordinates.3* Cases  involving  public  lands,  frauds  against  them, 
sales,  grants,  and  the  like,  as  well  as  all  questions  about  con- 
fiscated property,  prizes  taken  at  sea.  shipwrecks,  and  so  on, 
belonged  to  the  same  jurisdiction.40  All  royal  orders  and  decrees 


s«  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  71. 
"TWA,  art.  75. 
»/&uL,  art.  78. 
3*  Ibid.,  art.  79. 
*o  7Z»id.,  arts.  81-S3. 


266          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

touching  the  department  of  hacienda  were  to  be  given  to  the 
intendant  for  enforcement.41  In  case  of  any  conflicts  of  juris- 
diction between  the  intendant  and  any  other  tribunal,  the  former 
was  to  submit  his  reasons  to  the  latter,  go  ahead  with  the  decision 
of  the  question,  and  report  to  the  king  on  what  he  had  done. 

In  order  to  invest  the  intendants  with  all  the  dignity  and 
privileges  possible,  they  and  their  families  and  servants  and 
their  official  subordinates  were  given  the  fuero  militar,  and  they 
were  also  allowed  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  the  montepio  militar  as 
well.42  All  the  officials  of  the  hacienda,  from  the  intendant 
down,  were  to  receive  ample  salaries  but  were  forbidden  to 
engage  in  trade  of  any  kind  or  to  receive  any  other  emolument 
or  perquisites.43 

For  the  sake  of  uniformity  and  to  allow  the  central  authori- 
ties to  keep  in  touch  with  the  financial  operations  in  the  various 
intendancies,  it  was  required  that  every  extraordinary  expense 
should  be  reported  to  the  junta  superior.4*  In  pursuance  of  this 
same  plan,  each  intendant  was  to  prepare  an  annual  statement, 
libro  de  la  razon  general  de  la  real  hacienda,  of  the  incomes  and 
expenditures  of  his  province.  This  libro  was  to  contain  a  state- 
ment of  the  entire  income  of  the  treasury,  whether  from  such 
general  sources  as  the  alcabala  and  the  tribute,  or  from  such 
special  branches  as  the  ecclesiastical  revenue,  mesadas,  cruzada, 
and  the  like,  or  from  such  unusual  sources  as  the  montepios.*6 
The  expenditures  were  to  be  grouped  under  the  following  six 
"fixed  charges":  1,  real  hacienda;  2,  political;  3,  ecclesiastical; 
4,  military ;  5,  perpetual  pensions ;  6,  temporary  pensions. 

Although  enough  has  already  been  said  to  show  that  the 
intendants  were  very  important  financial  officers,  it  seems  neces- 
sary to  explain  whence  these  revenues  came.  The  first  source 
of  revenue  dealt  with  by  the  Ordinance  was  that  of  the  tribute.46 


41  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  84. 

42  Ibid.,  art.  85. 

«  Revilla  Gigedo,  arts.  912-914. 

44  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  108. 

45  Ibid.,  arts.  109-113. 

46  Ibid.,  arts.  126  and  127. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  267 


The  central  office  for  the  administration  of  this  department 
the  ctmtadtuia,  general  de  males  tributes.  In  a  sense,  the  in- 
tendants  were  the  agents  of  this  body  for  the  collection  of  the 
tax  on  the  Tndi««i  This  work  had  been  done  formerly  by  the  eor- 
regidors  and  alcaldes  may  ores,  but  was  now  transferred  to  the 
intendants,  though  the  actual  collections  were  made  by  the  sob- 
delegates  and  the  lowest  officials  in  the  Indian  Tillages.47  The 
next  source  of  revenue  dealt  with  was  the  famous  alcabala.  Tins 
tax  was  levied  at  the  various  custom  houses  of  the  city,  though 
it  was  supposed  to  be  a  tax  on  sales.4*  An  exceptional  position 
was  held  by  the  chief  of  the  custom  house  of  the  City  of  Mexico, 
who  was  less  directly  dependent  on  the  intendant.  The  third 
source  of  revenue  was  pulquf,  which,  in  spite  of  the  evils  it 
caused,  had  to  be  retained  for  the  sake  of  the  profits  brought  to 
the  government.  Article  one  hundred  and  forty-six  of  the 
Ordinance  discussed  the  extension  of  the  pulque  industry  and 
the  means  to  be  taken  to  extinguish  the  traffic  in  other  pernicious 
beverages. 

It  would  be  impassible  within  the  compass  of  a  chapter  to  do 
more  than  enumerate  the  remaining  sources  of  income  enjoyed 
by  the  government  of  Mexico.  There  was  a  large  number  of 
special  sources,  such  as  government  monopolies  of  powder  and 
playing  cards,  and  the  taxes  levied  on  mercury,  paper,  and  the 
mo/a*4*  and  la*zas.**  The  old  royal  fifth  on  gold,  silver, 


«  Ord.  de  /•£,  ait.  129.  The  ineosae  derived  from  the  frifrvfos  was  always 
one  of  the  principal  items  of  the  entire  Mexican  revenue.  The  total 
revenue  of  the  country  in  1794,  according  to  ReviDa  Gigedo,  amounted 
to  19,000,000  pases,  which  was  three  times  as  much  as  it  was  when  Galvez 
first  came  to  \mtmtt*  in  1764.  The  tribute  was  originally  paid  in  kind, 
bat  in  the  year  1651  it  was  ordered  to  be  paid  henceforth  in  noney. 
BeviDa  Gigedo,  arts.  741  and  931. 

"OrdL  de  1st,  arts.  144  and  145.  The  Indians  were  exempt  front 
the  alfokalA,  as  it  was  intended  that  the  tribute  should  be  their  peculiar 
tax.  Owing  to  the  difficulty  of  collecting  tie  latter  it  was  proposed  to 
abolish  it  and  substitute  the  altabala  to  make  up  the  required  UIHIBUBBI 
In  1794,  the  tribute  amounted  to  about  1,500,000  pesos,  and  the  cost  of 
collecting  it  was  100,000  pesos. 

«•  Ord.  de  Int,  art.  156.  .  .  .  M e*tt»-a«te*  were  granted  to  Ferdinand 
TI  by  Pope  Benedict  XIV  in  May,  1754,  but  it  was  not  until  October, 
1775,  that  advantage  was  taken  of  that  buD.  Ord.  of  Int,  art.  209. 

••AM,  art.  IBB. 


268  University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  1 

and  other  metals  still  remained,  and  though  certain  concessions 
were  made  to  private  individuals  to  develop  the  mining  industry, 
it  was  still  very  profitable  to  the  king.  The  bulls  of  the  Santa 
Cruzada  continued  to  bring  in  considerable  revenue,  as  did  also 
the  tithes  which  belonged  to  the  king.51  Juntas  de  Diezmos  or 
councils  for  the  administration  of  the  tithes,  were  to  be  estab- 
lished in  the  most  important  cities,  and  the  intendant  was  to 
act  as  chairman  of  the  junta  in  his  province.52  Taxes  called 
cuartas  episcopal  y  capitular,  or  episcopal  fourths,  and  the  reales 
novenos,  or  royal  ninths,  were  still  retained  and  collected  by  the 
intendants.  These  and  other  taxes  were  retained  with  very  little 
change  by  the  law  of  1786,  and  but  few  modifications  were  intro- 
duced at  the  time.  One  of  the  new  provisions,  which  was  not  of 
a  purely  financial  character  but  which  was  put  in  force  by  the 
Ordinance,  was  that  relating  to  the  various  juntas  de  almonedas, 
or  councils  of  auctions,  which  were  henceforth  established  in  the 
principal  cities.53  The  above  list  of  sources  of  revenue  is  not 
even  a  complete  enumeration  but  shows  the  variety  and  demands 
on  the  intendant 's  time  and  attention. 

Every  year  general  inventories  or  statements  of  the  fiscal 
condition  of  the  province  had  to  be  prepared  by  the  intendants 
and  sent  to  their  chief  in  the  City  of  Mexico.54  Watch  had  to 
be  kept  of  every  person  employed  in  the  real  hacienda  in  order 
to  observe  his  capacity  and  conduct,  and  be  able  to  correct  his 
faults.55  Frauds  of  all  kinds  against  the  revenue  laws  were  to 
be  guarded  against  by  the  intendants  with  all  possible  care,  and 
they  were  to  have  power  to  confiscate  goods  brought  into  the 
country  contrary  to  the  law.66  Above  the  intendants  as  courts 
of  appeal  and  as  administrative  bodies  giving  orders,  were  the 
two  juntas,  the  one,  the  junta  superior  de  real  hacienda,  and  the 


ei  Ord  de  Int.,  art.  165. 
52  Ibid.,  art.  170. 

63  Ibid.,  art.  164.     These  juntas  had  control  of  the  sale  by  public  auc- 
tion of  certain  public  offices. 

6*  Ibid.,  art.  237. 

65  Ibid.,  art.  238. 

66  Ibid. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  269 

other,  the  tribunal  de  contaduria  de  cuentas."  The  superin- 
tendent-general was  to  have  the  same  powers  in  New  Spain  that 
the  officer  of  the  same  title  enjoyed  in  Spain.  The  last  articles 
in  the  Ordinance  dealing  with  the  causa  de  hacienda  define  the 
relations  of  all  the  various  officials  in  this  department  from  the 
chief  at  Mexico  to  the  intendants  in  the  provinces.** 

The  fourth  of  the  great  departments  presided  over  by  the 
intendants  was  called  by  the  Spaniards  the  causa  de  guerra. 
This  was  the  branch  of  the  government  which  had  charge  of 
the  maintenance  of  the  provincial  troops  in  peace  and  war  and 
constituted  what  in  most  countries  would  be  called  the  war 
department.  In  Mexico,  however,  instead  of  one  central  war 
department  with  a  concentration  of  all  these  powers  in  a  central 
ministry  of  war,  there  were  established  twelve  intendancies. 
These  provincial  rulers  were  subordinate  to  the  general  intendant 
in  the  City  of  Mexico,  but  in  the  nature  of  things  had  a  good  deal 
of  independence  in  practice.  In  the  language  of  the  law  itself, 
"Being  my  royal  wish  that  the  intendants  of  the  provinces  have 
a  care  for  all  that  which  corresponds  to  war  and  has  a  connection 
with  my  real  hacienda  .  .  .  ."*"  This  was  defined  by  a  later 
article  to  mean  everything  pertaining  to  the  subsistence  of  the 
troops,  their  management  and  discipline,  and  general  improve- 
ment.*0 Likewise  was  included  everything  relating  to  their  pay, 
to  their  establishment  in  quarters,  and  the  issuance  of  rations. 
The  intendant  had  charge  of  the  movement  of  the  troops  from 
one  province  to  another,  and  their  assignment  to  various  military 
organizations,  and  the  Ordinance  prescribed  the  formalities  which 
had  to  be  observed  in  doing  this.*1 

In  order  to  carry  this  out  more  effectively  it  was  necessary 
to  collect  reserves  of  provisions  at  the  military  posts  and  large 
cities,  and  take  great  care  that  none  of  these  supplies  were  mis- 


ST  Ord.  de  Int.,  arts.  242  and  243. 
s*  Ibid.,  arts.  248  and  249. 
»» Ibid.,  art.  250. 
•o  Ibid.,  art.  252. 
« Ibid.,  art.  255. 


270          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

appropriated  by  the  minor  officials  or  issued  without  proper 
authorization.62  The  soldiers  had  to  be  protected  against  foods 
which  were  adulterated  or  of  inferior  quality,  and  in  the  pur- 
chase of  supplies  the  government  had  to  be  protected  against 
similar  frauds  and  dishonest  weights  and  measures.63  All  these 
things  and  innumerable  others  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
intendant  by  the  law  of  1786.  Horses  and  fodder,  firewood,  and 
other  necessities,  carts  and  other  means  of  transportation,  were 
furnished  through  the  intendant 's  office.64  The  military  forces 
stationed  in  the  province  were  to  be  reviewed  every  month.  All 
the  officials  of  the  commissary  department  down  to  the  mere 
clerks  and  attendants  were  directly  under  the  command  of  the 
intendant,  so  that  no  confusion  might  be  experienced  in  the  civil 
administration  of  the  army.65 

The  various  establishments  for  the  manufacture  and  prepara- 
tion of  munitions  of  war  were  also  in  the  hands  of  the  intendants 
and  they  had  to  keep  a  watch  on  all  these  institutions,  from  the 
army  bakeries  to  cannon  foundries,  which  had  to  be  inspected 
regularly.66  The  repair  of  fortifications  and  all  buildings  used 
by  the  military  was  likewise  entrusted  to  the  intendants,  though 
any  important  measure  of  this  kind  had  to  be  reported  carefully 
to  the  king  of  Spain.67 

The  last  articles  under  the  causa  de  guerra  and  consequently 
of  the  whole  Ordinance,  deal  with  the  relation  of  the  intendants 
to  the  superintendent-general  in  Mexico  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  viceroy  and  the  commandant-general  of  the  frontiers  on  the 
other;68  of  the  councils  of  war;69  of  the  rank  and  pay  of  the 
intendants  ;70  the  bonds  they  had  to  give  on  entering  office  ;71  and 


82  Qrd.  de  Int.,  arts.  258-261. 

«s  Ibid.,  art.  262. 

«*  Ibid.,  arts.  264-267. 

6576id.,  art.  277. 

«6  Ibid.,  arts.  292-296. 

<"  Ibid.,  art.  296. 

es  Ibid.,  arts.  299  and  300. 

e»  Ibid.,  art.  301. 

TO  Ibid.,  arts.  302  and  303. 

7i  Ibid.,  art.  304. 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  271 

the  inevitable  residencia  at  the  end.™  The  last  article  of  all 
forms  a  kind  of  second  enacting  clause,  and  declares  that  the 
Ordinance  was  to  have  the  force  of  law  and  that  it  revoked  all 
preceding  laws,  customs,  dispositions,  and  establishments  of 
contrary  effect.1* 

The  mere  statement  of  the  principal  points  in  the  Ordinance 
of  the  Intendants  cannot  give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  real 
intentions  of  those  who  promulgated  this  law  and  still  less  of  its 
actual  effects  in  New  Spain.  There  is  very  little  donbt  about  the 
nature  of  the  evils  it  was  designed  to  combat,  such  as  the  corrup- 
tions and  abuses  chargeable  to  the  corregidores  and  the  alcades 
mayorcs.  and  the  evil  of  a  too  despotic  power  in  the  hands  of 
the  viceroy.  There  has  been  little  serious  divergence  of  opinion 
in  regard  to  the  principal  mistakes  made  by  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment in  the  administration  of  her  colonies,  but  there  has  always 
been  a  singular  lack  of  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  various 
writers  who  have  dealt  with  the  reforms  which  were  directed 
against  those  mistakes.  The  new  system  of  government  by  in- 
tendants  was  put  in  force  by  Galvez  and  the  most  enlightened 
government  Spain  has  ever  had,  and  the  introduction  of  this 
system  into  New  Spain  came  only  after  a  trial  in  other  parts 
of  Spanish  America.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  powerful 
advocates  back  of  the  measure,  it  certainly  failed  to  be  an 
unqualified  success.14  Moreover,  it  did  succeed  in  arousing  a 
great  deal  of  adverse  criticism  and  it  had  not  been  in  force  two 
years  before  one  of  its  most  important  features  was  given  up 
and  a  return  to  the  previous  order  of  things  permitted. 


"  Ord.  de  Int.,  art.  305.  Viceroy  Bevilla  Gigedo  pointed  out  the  un- 
wisdom of  holding  residencia*  for  the  snbdelegates,  bat  he  did  not  feel  so 
strongly  about  holding  them  for  the  intendants.  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  864. 

« Ibid.,  art.  306. 

"  Bevilla  Gigedo,  art.  831.  Although  the  intendants  supplied  the  long 
felt  want  of  some  kind  of  intermediate  officials  between  the  viceroy  and 
the  superintendent-general  in  the  capital  and  the  distant  provincial  dis- 
tricts, their  appointment  took  a  good  deal  of  authority  from  many  exist- 
ing officials  and  so  caused  antagonisms  right  at  the  start.  The  same 
authority  declares  (articles  834  and  835),  that  the  first  intendants,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  had  no  political  experience  and  no  specific  knowl- 
edge of  the  country  they  were  sent  to  rule  over.  As  was  to  be  expected, 
this  proved  a  great  drawback,  especially  at  the  inception  of  this  new 
project. 


272          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

One  of  the  first  difficulties  that  present  themselves  to  a  modern 
investigator  is  that  of  realizing  just  what  difference  the  law  of 
the  intendants  really  brought  about  in  the  government  of  Mexico. 
At  first,  of  course,  it  stripped  the  viceroy  of  a  great  deal  of  power 
and  set  up  as  a  sort  of  rival  the  new  superintendent-general.  But 
this  first  and  most  obvious  change  was  only  temporary,  and  the 
intendant  system  had  only  been  fairly  established  when  the 
viceroy  was  himself  made  superintendent-general,  and  so  had  all 
his  old  powers  back  again.75  The  question  still  remains,  what 
were  the  permanent  effects  of  the  new  law? 

The  answer  to  this  question  naturally  falls  into  two  parts,  the 
first  consisting  of  those  facts  about  which  there  is  no  controversy, 
and  the  second  consisting  of  mutually  contradictory  statements 
which  cannot  be  reconciled  as  yet  by  the  historian,  nor  even  have 
their  relative  merits  decided.  The  admitted  facts  are  that  the 
new  system  introduced  a  more  definite  official  hierarchy,  with 
the  greater  simplicity  it  implies,  and  centralized  and  made 
uniform  the  government  of  the  provincias  henceforth  inten- 
dancies,  without  saving  the  viceroy  any  responsibility.76  The 
Indians  were  also  regarded  after  1786  as  more  independent, 
and  the  abandonment  of  the  repartimiento  system  tended  to  ob- 
literate the  economic  differences  between  the  native  races  and  the 
white  man.  Beyond  these  few  simple  statements  it  is  impossible 
to  go  without  encountering  serious  differences  of  opinion. 

The  leading  critics  of  the  intendent  system  were  Viceroy 
Eevilla  Gigedo  the  Younger,  and  Villarroel,  the  author  of  the 
Enfermendades  Politicas.  The  former  believed  that  the  results 
of  the  Ordinance  had  been  disappointing  in  that  the  good  that 


TO  Eevilla  Giegdo,  art.  740. 

™  Ibid.,  art.  838  et  seq.  In  the  year  1791  this  viceroy  submitted 
to  the  home  government  a  memorandum  of  532  paragraphs  on  the 
subject  of  the  intendants.  Besides  those  views  of  his  stated  in  the  text, 
there  was  one  proposing  that  the  intendants  should  be  divided  into 
classes,  those  of  the  lowest  class  being  assigned  to  the  least  important 
and  least  populous  intendancies,  and  with  smaller  salaries  than  those 
of  the  upper  class,  who  were  to  be  stationed  in  the  leading  cities,  such 
as  Mexico,  Guadalajara,  and  Vera  Cruz.  In  this  way  it  would  be  possible 
to  promote  the  inferior  intendants  who  had  shown  ability  and  still  keep 
them  in  the  service. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spam  273 

might  have  been  expected  was  wanting,  owing  to  the  inferior 
character  of  the  men  who  had  been  appointed  intendants-"  Nor 
was  that  all.  The  twelve  intendants  were  not  enough  numerically 
to  allow-  of  sufficiently  small  provinces,  and  so  they  were  over- 
worked.7* Furthermore,  they  were  all  too  much  alike  in  their  func- 
tions to  suit  the  variety  of  the  districts  they  were  set  to  rule  over 
and  there  was  a  demand,  so  this  viceroy  thought,  for  some  dis- 
tinctly military  intendants  for  the  frontier  provinces.™  Not  only 
the  intendants.  but  their  subordinates,  the  subdfkgados,  received 
some  criticism  from  the  same  man.  Owing  to  poor  pay  and  their 
dependence  on  the  men  who  went  on  their  bonds,  the  subdfhgados 
were  not  independent  enough  either  to  command  the  respect  of 
their  superior,  the  viceroy,  or  to  carry  on  their  comparatively 
humble  duties  as  subordinates  of  the  intendants.*0  They  were 
always  compared  unfavorably  with  the  alcaldes  mayores  and  the 
main  reason  seems  to  be  that  the  dignity  of  their  office,  and  the 
pay  likewise,  were  so  low  as  to  fail  to  attract  the  right  type  of 
office-holder.81 

In  the  main,  Yillarroel  agreed  with  Revilla  Gigedo  in  the 
latter  *s  arraignment  of  the  remodelled  government  of  New  Spain, 
but  his  whole  tone  is  more  caustic  and  less  judicial.  What 
seemed  to  him  the  greatest  condemnation  of  the  Ordinance  of 
1786  was  the  way  it  met  the  problem  of  the  native  races.  There 
had  been  enough  abuses  under  the  old  regime,  and  the  oppression 
of  the  Indian  by  the  corregidores  had  become  a  commonplace. 
Nevertheless,  under  the  new  law  there  was  too  indiscriminate  a 
change  in  the  government  of  the  Indians  without  a  real  better- 


rr  BeviUa  Gigedo,  art.  835. 

T«IMd.,  art.  836. 

t»IM<L,  art.  839. 

••  TWd.,  arts.  862-863. 

w/bvL,  art.  849  et  seq.  One  of  the  unfortunate  points  about  the 
position  of  the  snbdelegatea,  besides  poor  par  and  inferior  dignity,  was 
the  lack  of  opportunity  for  promotion.  To  meet  this  difficulty  it  was 
suggested  that  they  be  divided  into  three  classes,  the  first  class  number- 
ing thirty,  the  second  sixty,  and  the  third,  eighty.  There  was  to  be  a 
marked  gradation  of  pay  and  so  there  could  be  an  opportunity  for  pro- 
motion. It  could  then  be  insisted  upon  that  every  snbdelegate  be  tetrode, 
or  educated  in  the  law. 


274          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

merit  of  their  condition.  The  old  repartimiento  system,  which 
kept  the  native  in  a  peonage,  if  not  serfdom,  was  not  without  its 
merits.  It  did  something  toward  keeping  the  natives  busy  and 
under  the  supervision  of  the  white  man.  This  might  mean 
tyranny  in  many  cases,  but  it  did  not  throw  the  Indian  on  his 
own  slender  resources  to  compete  against  the  Spaniard.  Under 
the  new  scheme  the  Indian  was  to  be  given  more  responsibility 
and  less  direction,  while  the  tribute  was  exacted  just  the  same. 
Villarroel  regarded  the  decree  as  unconstitutional  because  the 
usual  procedure  had  not  been  observed  in  the  drafting  of  the 
measure  and  its  submission  to  the  king.  It  was  intended,  he 
thought,  to  deprive  the  king  of  his  direct  control  over  the  admin- 
istration in  America.  These  reasons  seem  so  fantastic  that  it  will 
not  be  necessary  to  give  them  further  consideration,  particularly 
as  the  writer  himself  advances  no  proof  whatever  for  the  asser- 
tions. 

The  great  difficulty  encountered  by  one  who  attempts  to  form 
an  opinion  of  the  Ordinance  is  that  it  was  not  in  force  long 
enough  really  to  show  what  its  effects  would  be.  It  had  been  in 
force  only  a  very  few  years  before  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion so  disturbed  commerce  and  turned  all  thoughts  toward  mili- 
tary questions  that  there  was  no  disposition  left  to  embark  on 
any  thorough-going  reforms.  The  two  objections  urged  by 
Revilla  Gigedo  in  1794,  that  there  were  not  enough  intendancies 
and  that  the  men  appointed  were  inexperienced  and  consequently 
inefficient,  were  scarcely  arguments  against  the  system  itself.  The 
writer  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  idea  of  having  intendants 
was  a  good  one  if  there  had  been  enough  of  them,  so  that  the 
intendancies  might  have  been  small  enough  for  one  man  to  handle, 
and  if  the  best  men  available  had  been  appointed  to  the  post. 
It  was  a  misfortune  that  foreign  war  and  other  extravagances 
seemed  to  require  such  economies  that  it  was  impossible  to  appoint 
a  sufficient  number  of  properly  paid  officials  for  the  viceroyalty ; 
and  that  the  particular  experiment  was  tried  when  most  of  the 
appointments  could  be  dictated  by  such  a  statesman  as  Manuel 
Godoy. 


19»]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  275 

From  what  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding  pages,  it  may 
seem  as  if  the  title  to  this  chapter  has  not  been  justified.  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  many  persons  in  New  Spain  during 
the  last  two  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  not  regard  all 
the  changes  instituted  by  Galvez  as  reforms.  However,  the  great 
free-trade  reglamento  was  all  but  universally  regarded  as  a 
reform  and  as  a  notable  advance  toward  a  correct  colonial  policy. 
Many  of  the  minor  reforms  of  Galvez  have  not  been  treated  in 
this  chapter  partly  because  they  appear  in  another  place,  but 
particularly  because  a  certain  advantage  of  simplicity  is  gained 
in  treating  alone  the  two  most  distinctive  pieces  of  legislation 
which  have  in  this  chapter  been  referred  to  as  the  reforms  of 
Galvez. 


276          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 


CHAPTER  VII 

CONCLUSION 

While  the  author  of  this  thesis  cannot  attempt  to  say  what 
he  has  done,  it  seems  but  right  for  him  to  make  a  clear  avowal 
of  what  he  has  tried  to  do,  and  (this  is  almost  as  important)  what 
he  has  not  attempted.  There  has  been  so  much  written  of  a  dis- 
appointing character  about  the  Spaniards  in  America  that  one 
wants  to  know  rather  definitely  the  scope  and  intent  of  any  new 
work  before  it  can  command  any  consideration  or  attention  what- 
ever. Let  it  be  understood,  therefore,  at  the  outset,  that  this 
study  does  not  make  any  pretense  of  affording  a  complete  exposi- 
tion of  the  Spanish  administrative  system  in  America,  or  even 
in  Mexico,  and  the  most  that  may  be  claimed  for  it  is  that  it  is 
a  statement  of  the  functions  of  the  viceroy  as  they  were  to  be 
found  in  the  closing  years  of  the  Spanish  reign. 

A  word  of  explanation  is  now  due  in  regard  to  the  needs  of 
any  such  work  in  the  light  of  the  amount  that  has  already  been 
done.  In  the  first  place,  the  great  bulk  of  the  works  on  Spanish 
America  deal  with  its  history  in  the  ordinary  narrative  form  with 
only  a  casual  reference  here  and  there  to  the  administrative  sys- 
tem itself;  and  then  the  principal  interest  is  always  shown  in 
the  evils  of  that  system  as  it  worked  out  in  regard  to  the  native 
races.  The  second  great  group  of  books  in  this  general  field 
relate  to  geography  and  travel,  and,  while  the  literature  is  rich 
and  varied  and  throws  some  light  on  the  workings  of  Spain's 
colonial  government,  there  is  nothing  either  comprehensive  or 
detailed  on  the  purely  administrative  side.  The  works  that  have 
deliberately  attacked  the  problems  of  the  actual  government  of 
New  Spain  and  have  been  based  upon  the  sources,  have  con- 


Smitk:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  277 

fined  themselves  too  exclusively  to  a  certain  kind  of  documents, 
namely,  the  Laws  of  the  Indies.  This  has  resulted  in  our  know- 
ing a  great  deal  about  what  the  Spanish  officials  were  supposed 
to  do  but  almost  nothing  about  how  they  actually  did  it.  One 
of  the  common  fallacies  to  which  writers  on  Spain  in  America 
have  been  subject,  as  Rivera  pointed  out,  has  been  to  confound 
the  legislation  for  the  Indies  with  the  execution  of  those  same 
laws.  He  might  have  added  that  this  mistake  in  the  method  was 
largely  due  to  the  far  greater  knowledge  which  the  historians 
had  of  the  former  than  of  the  latter.  The  statutes  have  been 
accessible  for  a  long  while,  but  the  materials  for  showing  how 
these  same  statutes  operated  have  been  most  difficult  to  use  and 
interpret. 

"With  such  works  as  that  of  Solorzanjo,  who  described  the 
whole  political  organization  of  New  Spain,  and  that  of  Antunez, 
who  brought  together  in  one  volume  all  the  laws  relating  to  the 
trade  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country,  and  other 
books  of  a  like  nature,  there  is  ample  means  for  knowing  what 
the  law  was  on  any  particular  subject.  The  trouble  has  always 
been,  however,  that  none  of  these  writers  has  been  disposed 
to  go  into  the  details  of  the  operation  of  these  laws.  What  is 
really  wanted  at  the  present  time  for  the  clear  understanding  of 
how  the  Spanish  regime  actually  worked  is  an  exposition  of  the 
actual  process  of  carrying  into  effect  these  laws.  Perhaps 
enough  has  already  been  written  to  show  fairly  clearly  what  the 
general  framework  of  the  government  of  Spanish  America  under 
the  colonial  system  was,  but  the  attempt  of  this  thesis  has  been 
to  make  a  beginning  of  the  study  of  Spanish  colonial  adminis- 
tration. 

Prom  the  obvious  necessity  of  some  kind  of  limitation,  this 
study  has  confined  itself  to  only  one  portion  of  the  Spanish 
empire,  namely,  the  Viceroyalty  of  New  Spain,  and  to  a  certain 
very  definite  period,  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Though  the  writer  is  persuaded  that  a  great  deal  of  what  is 
stated  to  be  true  for  the  region  of  Mexico  was  also  true  for  Peru 
and  other  parts  of  America,  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  assert 


278          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

anything  for  the  territories  outside  of  New  Spain.  In  spite  of 
the  great  changes  wrought  during  the  reign  of  Charles  III,  the 
greater  part  of  the  administrative  structure  found  standing  in 
America  in  the  days  of  Galvez  had  stood  in  a  recognizably  similar 
form  for  a  long  time  before,  so  that,  in  many  ways,  what  has 
been  stated  to  be  true  during  the  administrations  of  Bucareli 
and  the  younger  Revilla  Gigedo  was  also  true  for  a  much  earlier 
period. 

The  foregoing  chapters  have  made  it  appear,  it  is  hoped,  that 
the  viceroy  was  an  official  endowed  with  a  great  variety  of  func- 
tions. It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  all  his  duties,  as  governor, 
captain-general,  vice-patron,  and  superintendent-general  of  real 
hacienda,  must  be  viewed  from  at  least  two  different  standpoints. 
From  one  point  of  view  the  viceroy  was  the  agent  of  the  home 
government,  sent  over-sea  to  look  after  imperial  interests  arid 
govern  a  subject  population.  From  another  standpoint  he  was 
a  local  official  with  his  chief  object  the  defense  and  good  govern- 
ment of  the  district  over  which  he  ruled,  and  the  prosperity  and 
good  order  of  its  inhabitants.  That  these  two  interests  were  often 
widely  separated  and  not  infrequently  in  direct  opposition,  is, 
of  course,  patent  to  all.  In  many  cases  one  would  expect  the 
viceroy  to  be  troubled  as  to  which  one  of  these  interests  to  sup- 
port. The  extreme  care  exercised  by  the  crown  in  excluding  all 
Creoles  from  high  office  and  reserving  for  Spanish  grandees  the 
post  of  viceroy  itself,  succeeded,  so  the  great  majority  of  writers 
think,  in  keeping  the  interests  of  the  mother  country  supreme. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  some  of  the  English  governors  in 
North  America  tried  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  colonists,  at  times 
even  against  the  mother  country,  but  if  such  has  ever  been  the 
case  in  Spanish  America  it  has  escaped  notice. 

The  viceroys  and  captains-general  were  always  willing  enough 
to  protect  the  rights  of  their  subjects  against  the  encroachments 
of  other  colonies  but  apparently  never  against  the  interests  of 
Spain  itself.  For  instance,  the  viceroys  of  Mexico  resented  very 
deeply  the  payment  of  subsidies,  situados,  to  Guatemala  and  the 
neighboring  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  but  they  seemed  to  take 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  279 

pride  in  sending  as  much  as  possible  to  the  king.  The  obliga- 
tions of  the  viceroys  as  local  officials  never  seemed  to  weigh 
heavily  enough  to  make  them  want  to  build  up  local  industries 
at  the  expense  of  those  in  Spain,  or  to  retain  the  large  sums 
which  were  sent  to  Europe,  to  expend  on  public  improvements  in 
the  dependency. 

It  is  all  but  impossible  to  make  any  intelligent  comparison  of 
the  merits  of  the  colonial  systems  of  Spain  and  the  other  coloniz- 
ing powers,  but  a  comparison  of  the  different  forms  of  colonial 
government  is  inevitable.  In  many  ways  Spain  was  the  pioneer 
among  the  nations  that  had  colonies  to  rule,  and  it  may  not  be 
too  much  to  say  that  Spain's  system  was  the  model  upon  which 
the  other  powers  more  or  less  unconsciously  built.  The  resemb- 
lances of  the  various  European  colonial  systems  were,  after  all, 
far  greater  than  their  differences,  and  the  fact  that  Spain  was 
first  in  the  field  makes  it  more  than  probable  that  her  example 
in  colonial  matters  was  largely  followed. 

In  making  a  comparison  between  the  colonial  systems  of 
Spain  and  her  European  rivals,  it  would  seem  natural  to  begin 
with  their  respective  methods  of  control  over  the  colonies  by  the 
home  government.  A  difficulty  is  encountered,  in  the  beginning, 
because  of  the  wide  difference  between  the  strictly  governmental 
control  adhered  to  by  Spain  and  that  of  the  great  chartered 
private  companies  of  the  Netherlands  and  Great  Britain.  To  be 
sure,  both  the  English  and  the  Dutch  eventually  abandoned  the 
company  system  in  the  East  Indies  and  adopted  a  system  of 
administration  approximating  to  that  of  Spain,  but  when  this 
was  done  there  was  no  longer  any  Spanish  system  left,  so  that 
there  was  no  possible  opportunity  for  a  comparison  of  the  work- 
ings of  this  same  system  by  the  different  maritime  powers,  for 
the  same  period.  The  Portuguese  system  was  throughout  very 
much  like  that  of  the  Spaniards,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  draw  a 
very  close  parallel  even  between  these  two.  The  Brazilian  planta- 
tions were  not  organized  into  a  viceroyalty  until  1720,  so  that 
Brazil,  as  a  full-fledged  dependency  of  the  first  rank,  was  much 
younger  than  the  adjacent  Spanish  vieeroyalties  in  America,1 
excepting  only  Buenos  Ayres. 


280          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

Because  of  the  great  general  similarity  in  the  government  of 
\  dependencies  observable  in  the  systems  of  Spain  and  Portugal, 
they  might  with  some  justification  be  called  the  Iberian.  In  this 
system,  the  principal  organ  for  administrative  control  on  the 
part  of  the  metropolis  was  the  Council  of  the  Indies.  This  drafted 
all  legislation  for  the  colonies,  issued  commissions  to  the  colonial 
officials,  and  approved  of  all  bulls  and  briefs  which  were  to  be 
published  there.  The  English  counterpart  of  this  body  was  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company  in  the  earlier 
days,  and  after  1784,  the  Board  of  Control.  A  similar  organiza- 
tion prevailed  in  the  Netherlands,  where  the  directors  of  the  com- 
pany likewise  constituted  the  legislative  body  for  the  colonies. 
In  the  nineteenth  century  both  the  English  and  the  Dutch  re- 
organized their  system  of  control  by  the  home  government  and 
approached  very  closely  to  the  Spanish  model.  After  the  Sepoy 
mutiny  the  English  government  openly  took  over  the  sole  re- 
sponsibility for  the  government  of  India  and  created  an  India 
Council,  or  rather  a  Secretary  for  India  and  Council,  which  im- 
mediately suggests  the  Consejo  de  Indias  and  the  Ministro  Uni- 
versal de  Indias,  of  Spain.  Even  the  title  of  viceroy  was  adopted 
after  1858,2  though  it  had  no  recognition  in  the  language  of  the 
English  statutes. 

Although  the  Dutch  made  changes  in  the  nineteenth  century 
which  brought  their  colonial  system  much  nearer  that  of  the  older 
Spanish  model,  they  did  not  create  an  Indian  Council  or  any- 
thing to  be  compared  at  all  accurately  with  the  Consejo  de  Indias. 
This  step  has  been  advocated  by  some  of  the  most  intelligent 
colonial  experts  in  the  Netherlands  but  neither  the  Council  nor 
the  viceregal  title  has  been  accepted  by  them.  The  Dutch  National 
Legislature  has  reserved  for  itself  all  those  duties  which  might 
have  been  assigned  to  an  India  Council,  except  those  which  have 
been  retained  by  the  crown.  The  king  acting  through  his  minister 
has  retained  there  a  power  somewhat  analogous  to  that  formerly 
exercised  by  the  kings  of  Spain  and  the  Ministro  Universal.  It 

1  Ziminermann,  p.  173.     Also,  Hurtado,  p.  34  et  seq. 

2  Chesney,  p.  132. 


Smitk:  Tke  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  281 

will  be  remembered  that  during  the  French  occupation  of  Canada, 
as  described  by  Parkman  in  his  Old  Regime,  all  legislation  eman- 
ated from  France,  and  that  the  CouneiL  which  used  to  sit  at 
Quebec,  was  executive,  not  legislative  in  character. 

Turning  from  the  question  of  the  control  of  the  colonies  by 
the  home  governments  to  the  governments  of  the  dependencies 
as  they  were  found  in  the  dependencies  themselves,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  make  comparisons  here  between  the  methods  of  Spain 
and  the  other  countries.  As  will  be  remembered  from  chapter 
m.  the  government  of  the  Spanish  vieeroyalties  centered 
around  the  viceroy  and  an  audiencia.  For  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, the  governor-general  at  Batavia  was  a  viceroy  in  every- 
thing but  title,  without  being  hampered  by  the  presence  of  any- 
thing comparable  to  the  Spanish  audiencia.  The  council  of  five 
members  which  was  given  to  the  governor-general  in  1854  was 
quite  subordinate  to  him,3  and  never  has  been  the  check  upon 
the  executive  that  the  audiencia  was  in  New  Spain.  The  real 
check  upon  the  governor-general  of  the  Dutch  East  Indies  is 
the  ease  and  rapidity  of  communication  with  the  home  govern- 
ment, as  is  also  the  case  of  the  English  viceroy  in  India.  It  is 
more  than  doubtful  that  Amsterdam  and  London,  in  these  days 
of  the  telegraph  and  cable,  dictate  as  much  in  the  minutiae  of 
administration  as  did  Madrid  and  Paris  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,4  but  it  may  explain  the  disposition  of  the 
Dutch  to  leave  their  governor-general  in  Java  without  the  fetters 
of  a  powerful  council.  With  the  viceroy  of  New  Spain,  although 
provided  with  a  corps  of  clerks,  forming  the  various  secretariats, 
there  was  not  the  same  division  of  his  civil  functions  into  certain 
well-defined  departments,  such  as  is  now  found  in  British  India 
and  Java.  On  its  administrative  side  the  audiencia  of  Mexico  had 
nothing  like  the  importance  of  the  councils  at  Batavia  and  Cal- 
cutta, and  in  that  regard  was  far  less  efficient.  The  Portuguese 
viceroys  of  Brazil  were  no  better  supplied  with  administrative 


*  Day,  pp.  415  and  416. 
pp.  73-82. 


282          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  1 

assistants  than  the  viceroys  of  Peru  and  Mexico,  and  their  con- 
trol over  the  provinces  under  their  care  was  even  less  effective 
and  immediate.5  The  nine  subdivisions  of  Brazil  were  fairly 
independent  of  the  viceroy  and  of  each  other,  so  that  the  central- 
ization of  the  government  in  Portuguese  America  was  less  marked 
than  in  the  neighboring  Spanish  territories. 

The  provincial  government  of  Spanish  America  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  was  far  more  highly  developed  than  that  of  the 
English  and  Dutch  colonies  in  the  Indies.  The  only  comparison 
that  can  be  made,  therefore,  is  with  the  English  and  Dutch 
dependencies  in  the  nineteenth  century,  or  at  the  present  time.6 
The  twelve  intendancies  of  New  Spain  would  correspond  roughly 
to  the  twenty-two  residences  in  Java,  or  the  fifteen  major  terri- 
torial units  of  British  India.  In  the  degree  of  centralization  of 
all  sorts  of  administrative  functions  the  intendant  stood  highest, 
though  the  Dutch  Resident  is  supposed  to  do,  or  oversee  the  doing 
of,  nearly  everything  that  a  ruler  can  do.  The  Spanish  sub- 
delegates,  the  direct  subordinates  of  the  intendants  in  New 
Spain,  suggest  a  comparison  with  the  district  officers  of  British 
India  and  the  assistant  residents  of  Java.  They  possessed  the 
same  sort  of  powers  that  the  intendants  themselves  had,  only  on 
a  humbler  scale  and  in  a  smaller  district.  Thus  the  individual 
efficiency  of  these  officials,  as  of  the  assistant  residents  and  dis- 
trict officers,  determined  very  largely  the  character  of  the  whole 
government. 

One  rather  striking  point  in  common  with  the  Spanish,  Dutch, 
and  English  systems  was  the  very  general  employment,  in  humble 
capacities  to  be  sure,  of  native  officials.  Under  the  subdelegates 
in  the  Spanish  intendancies  was  a  large  class  of  native  officials 
who  collected  the  taxes  and  came  into  immediate  contact  with 
the  mass  of  the  native  population.  These  subalternos  in  the  In- 
dian villages  were  elected,  under  the  direction  of  the  subdelegates 
or  alcaldes,  by  the  natives  themselves,  and  are  to  be  compared 


s  Zimmermann,  pp.  173-174. 

6  Day,  chap.  12,  passim. 

7  Day,  p.  420. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  2f  3 

with  the  regents  in  the  Javanese  provinces.  The  important  differ- 
ence was,  however,  that  the  regents  in  Java  were  chiefs  of  great 
influence  among  the  native  population  while  the  subalternos  were 
the  humblest  kind  of  office-holders.  Moreover,  the  Dutch  endeav- 
ored to  keep  up  an  hereditary  succession  among  their  native 
rulers  while  the  Spanish  method  was  to  depend  on  annual  elec- 
tions. Perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  liken  the  subalternos 
to  the  district  heads  and  their  subordinates  (who  form  the  lowest 
group  in  the  administrative  hierarchy  in  Java)  rather  than  to  the 
dignified  regents,  who  are  appointed  by  the  governor-general  from 
the  native  nobility.  As  the  French  in  Canada  had  no  civilized 
native  population  to  deal  with,  their  experience  with  the  problem 
of  native  office-holders  was  simply  nil,  and  as  the  new  empire 
which  they  have  in  recent  times  acquired  in  Indo-China  is  so  far 
removed  in  space  and  time  from  the  conditions  in  New  Spain 
under  the  Spaniards,  there  would  be  no  advantage  in  trying  to 
institute  comparisons  between  the  two. 

It  would  be  possible  to  extend  this  comparison  of  the  Spanish 
rule  with  those  of  the  other  powers  into  a  number  of  depart- 
ments, showing  the  differences  in  levying  taxes,  organizing  the 
military,  building  public  works,  maintaining  the  church,  provid- 
ing public  schools,  and  so  on,  but  I  refer  to  limit  myself  to  a 
mere  reference  to  a  couple  of  points  which  seem  never  to  be  men- 
tioned in  the  books.  The  first  is  the  notable  absence  in  all  the 
early  dependencies  of  Spain.  France,  Portugal,  and  the  Nether-  , 
lands  of  any  provision  for  provincial  legislation,  and  tbfi.iery 
early  appearance  of  the  same  in  the  English  colonies.  As  was 
pointed  out  in  chapter  n,  the  supervision  of  the  viceroy  by  the 
home  government  was  extreme,  and  this  implied  a  monopoly  of 
the  legislation,  which  contrasted  markedly  with  the  liberty  in 
local  affairs  enjoyed  by  the  English  colonies  in  North  America, 

On  the  other  hand,  apparently  in  conflict  with  the  above,  there    ^ 
was  the  provision  in  Spanish  America  for  local  councils,  which 
were  absent  in  French  Canada  and  are  still  unknown  in  Java. 
Every  town  in  New  Spain  had  its  ayuntamiento,  or  board  of 
aldermen.    The  membership  was,  it  is  true,  supplied  mainly  by 


284          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

sale  of  the  positions,  and  the  regidores  were  not  a  type  of  official 
to  be  praised  highly,  but  there  was  the  germ  of  local  self-govern- 
ment in  the  institution  and  as  such  is  deserving  of  attention. 

In  this  concluding  chapter  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to  at- 
tempt a  resume  of  the  subject-matter  of  this  entire  thesis,  or  even 
to  pass  a  judgment  on  the  Spanish  colonial  system,  as  a  whole 
or  in  part.  It  is  realized  by  the  writer  that,  important  as  the 
viceroy  and  his  activities  were,  he  was  not  the  entire  government 
even  of  the  viceroyalty,  and  of  course  was  a  still  smaller  part 
of  the  great  imperial  administrative  organization  which  had  its 
center  at  Madrid.  It  is  nevertheless  put  forth  with  some  con- 
fidence that  there  does  not  exist  as  yet  anything  like  an  adequate 
study  of  the  viceregal  office,  and  that  until  such  a  study  is  avail- 
able it  will  not  be  possible  to  understand  the  true  nature  of  the 
Spanish  rule  in  America.  With  this  need  in  mind,  the  preceed- 
ing  pages  have  been  written  and  are  submitted  as  a  very  modest 
contribution  to  the  beginning  of  at  least  one  part  of  that  study. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

The  authorities  upon  which  this  thesis  is  based  may  be  divided  roughly 
into  two  general  classes,  primary  and  secondary;  but  the  secondary 
material  is  used  rather  for  illustration  of  point  of  view  than  as  a  basis 
for  any  judgment  or  conclusion  found  in  this  study.*  The  primary 
material  naturally  varies  greatly,  not  only  as  to  its  general  value,  but 
also  for  the  particular  purposes  for  which  it  may  be  used-  It  has  seemed 
not  only  convenient  but  logical  to  divide  the  primary  materials  further 
into  two  groups,  corresponding  to  their  derivation,  official  and  unofficial. 
Of  the  two,  the  official  sources  are  of  much  the  greater  importance  and 
may  be  described  as  follows 

Fundamental  in  their  nature,  and  absolutely  essential  to  any  under- 
standing of  the  workings  of  the  Spanish  administrative  system,  are  the 
Laws  of  the  Indies,  the  code  or  body  of  statute  laws  for  the  whole 
Spanish  colonial  empire.  These  laws  were  more  than  the  mass  of  legis- 
lation which  Spain  provided  for  her  colonies,  for  they  partook  of  the 
nature  of  a  constitution  as  well,  and  so  were  in  effect  the  basis  of  all 
law,  statute  and  administrative,  for  Spanish  America.  But  strictly  speak- 


i  Practically  all  the  sources  used  for  this  thesis  are  in  the  Bancroft 
Collection  of  the  University  of  California.  Much  of  the  primary  material 
is  in  the  form  of  transcripts  of  documents  now  in  the  national  archives 
of  Mexico  and  the  remainder  has  been  printed  but  is  now  almost  inac- 
cessible. 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  2S5 

log,  the  Leyes  de  las  India*  were  not  the  only  laws  framed  by  the  metrop- 
olis for  the  dependencies.  The  eode  proper  was  supplemented  by  a  vast 
number  of  royal  orders  and  decrees,  cedulas  y  6rde*f*  retries  and  decretas 
retries,  by  which  it  was  substantially  modified,  amended,  and  enlarged. 
Of  similar  import,  though  of  a  lower  degree  of  validity,  were  the  decrees 
and  rulings  of  the  viceroys  themselves,  which  under  the  name  of  bandos 
constantly  appear  among  the  source  of  materials  of  this  thesis.  Com- 
parable to  our  common  law  were  the  decisions  of  the  highest  provincial 
courts,  the  antes  acordados  of  the  aiideiuruu,  which  were  therefore  an 
addition  to  the  amount  of  legistie  material  that  had  to  be  examined, 
but  which  had  proved  relatively  unimportant  for  this  particular  subject. 
Similar  to  the  above,  in  that  they  are  practically  of  the  same  legal  char- 
acter, are  the  numerous  charters  which  were  issued  to  various  corpora- 
tions by  the  kings  of  Spain.  The  most  important  of  these  charters 
related,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  great  commercial  companies  such  as  the 
Philippine  Company  and  the  Caracas  Company,  and,  on  the  other,  to  the 
various  congvJados  which  were  such  useful  pieces  of  administrative  mach- 
inery for  the  regulation  and  encouragement  of  commerce.  Their  connec- 
tion with  the  functions  of  the  viceroys  was  rather  remote,  but  occasionally 
threw  light  upon  the  relations  of  the  viceregal  governments  to  the  whole 
subject  of  commerce.  Miscellaneous  charters,  like  that  of  the  University 
of  Mexico  or  that  of  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  also  gave  indications  of 
the  activity  and  influence  of  the  church  in  education,  and  indirectly  of 
the  viceroy's  powers  as  vice-patron. 

The  remainder  of  the  official  documents  is  made  up  of  the  official 
source  materials  which  are  not  laws,  constitutions,  nor  charters,  but  which 
are  indispensable  for  the  correct  understanding  of  the  actual  operation 
of  the  same.  Foremost  among  these  are  the  various  instructions  which 
were  written  by  the  viceroys,  at  the  close  of  their  own  administrations, 
as  a  report  on  what  they  had  accomplished  during  their  separate  terms 
of  office,  and  as  a  guide  for  their  successors.  These  iitstntanoiies  de  ctreye* 
have  been  recognized  as  being  of  sufficient  importance  to  deserve  print- 
ing, but  with  one  or  two  exceptions  they  have  been  little  used  by  the 
secondary  historians.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  useful  kind 
of  material  for  the  study  of  a  viceroy' s  administration,  and  the  particular 
instruction  written  by  Bevilla  Gigedo  in  1794  for  his  successor  Branei- 
forte,  has  been  used  constantly  in  the  preparation  of  this  thesis. 

It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  value  of  these  reports,  for  while 
they  do  not  tell  the  whole  story  or  perhaps  any  part  of  it  so  that  it  can 
be  taken  without  qualification,  they  do  tell  clearly  enough  what  the 
viceroys  conceived  to  be  their  duties,  how  they  attempted  to  fulfil  them, 
and  to  what  extent  they  believed  they  failed  or  succeeded.  It  must  occur 
to  anyone  that  these  instructions  or  reports  are  open  to  the  suspicion 
of  bias  on  account  of  the  very  natural  desire  of  the  writer  to  make  as 
good  a  showing  as  possible  for  his  administration,  but  as  these  reports 
were  for  the  guidance  of  an  immediate  successor,  who  would  be  in  posi- 


286          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 

tion  to  judge  of  their  accuracy,  and  who  would  not,  therefore,  be  imposed 
upon  very  long,  there  existed  a  very  serious  check  on  the  tendency  of 
an  outgoing  official  to  warp  the  truth  too  decidedly.  In  fact,  it  may  be 
asserted  of  most  of  these  instrucciones  that  they  were  written  in  a  humble 
tone,  rather  apologetic  than  boastful,  and  they  stand  the  test  of  credi- 
bility when  they  are  checked  by  other  contemporary  documents. 

The  remaining  official  contemporary  documents  which  have  been  used, 
partly  to  check  the  viceregal  reports,  and  partly  to  furnish  independent 
evidence  on  matters  ignored  by  or  but  hinted  at  in  them,  consist  of  three 
sorts — proceedings  and  findings  of  the  residencias,  or  investigations 
directed  against  the  viceroys  at  the  close  of  their  administrations;  reports, 
or  informes,  of  the  visitor-general;  and  the  correspondence  of  various 
officials,  notably  that  of  the  viceroys  with  their  subordinates.  The  full 
text  of  the  residencias  of  the  elder  Eevilla  Gigedo  is  in  the  Bancroft 
Library  of  the  University  of  California,  and  has  been  studied  to  show 
the  nature  of  that  court  of  inquiry  and  its  relations  to  the  larger  ques- 
tion of  the  control  over  the  viceroy  exercised  by  the  home  government. 
The  informes  of  the  visitor-general  were  particularly  useful  for  the  aid 
they  gave  in  understanding  the  workings  of  the  real  hacienda,  and  the 
duties  of  the  viceroy  as  superintendent-general  of  that  department  of 
the  government.  Of  all  the  official  correspondence,  the  fullest  and  most 
enlightening  is  that  of  the  viceroys  and  the  governors  of  the  provinces — 
that  of  Viceroy  Bucareli  and  Governor  Neve  of  California  being  used 
the  most. 

Concerning  the  unofficial  contemporary  materials  very  little  need  be 
said,  because  of  the  distinctly  minor  importance  that  it  has  had  in  the 
preparation  of  this  thesis.  Facts  of  historical  value  may,  of  course,  be 
found  in  such  periodicals  as  the  Gazeta  de  Mexico  and  the  Correo  de  Indias, 
but  the  perusal  of  these  papers  proved  to  be  of  little  profit  to  this  study 
of  the  viceregal  administration.  Of  incomparably  greater  worth  were 
the  four  volumes  in  manuscript  of  Villarroel,  the  vigorous  critic  of 
Mexico's  " Enfermedades  Politicas,"  as  his  work  is  called.  He  sweeps 
over  the  whole  field  of  the  state's  activities — morals,  religion,  police  and 
crime,  finance,  treatment  of  the  natives,  the  administrative  changes 
during  the  last  third  of  the  century — and  so  offers  a  striking  account  of 
the  state  of  the  country  parallel  to  the  reports  of  the  viceroys. 

Of  the  rich  and  fascinating  travel  literature  which  has  been  left  by 
Europeans  as  a  record  of  their  impressions  of  Spanish  America,  Mexico 
has  had  its  full  share,  but  with  the  exception  of  Humboldt,  who  must 
be  regarded  after  all  as  a  secondary  writer,  these  foreign  authors  and 
observers  have  not  been  called  upon  to  give  testimony  regarding  the 
government  of  New  Spain.  They  have  always  been  interested  in  the 
picturesque  aspects  of  Spanish  American  colonial  life,  the  mistreatment 
of  the  Indians,  the  raids  of  the  buccaneers,  the  founding  of  missions,  and 
the  like,  rather  than  the  prosaic  question  of  government  and  administra- 
tion. Among  the  great  number  of  secondary  authorities  only  a  few  of 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  Xew  Spain  2ST 

the  great  iff"*^",  and  those  who  hare  been  of  particular  service,  can  be 
mentioned  here.  Foremost  in  actual  value  and  reputation  stands  Alex- 
ander von  Hnmboldt.  It  must  be  renumbered,  however,  that  Humboldt's 
interests  were  not  primarily  is  matters  governmental,  still  less  adminis- 
trative, so  that  I  have  been  unable  to  make  as  much  use  of  the  Political 
jRcnrjr  am  yem  Spain  as  the  fame  of  the  author  might  seem  to  justify. 
Dealing  with  contemporaneous  conditions  and  events,  and  with  the  most 
•BUffnal  opportunities  for  observing  what  he  wished  to  write  about,  the 
four-volume  essay  of  Humboldt  partakes  of  the  nature  of  primary 
material,  and  contains  as  much  material  for  history  as  it  does  history 
itself. 

For  somewhat  different  but  quite  as  valid  reasons,  the  modern  in- 
vestigator must  acknowledge  his  indebtedness  to  Hubert  Howe  Bancroft. 
The  general  survey  which  this  historian  has  made  of  the  history  and 
of  Spanish  North  America  is  in  all  its  main  outlines  sub- 


stantially correct.  While  it  is  true  that  in  his  thirty-nine  volumes  Mr. 
Bancroft  devotes  only  eight  or  ten  pages  specifically  to  the  administra- 
tive functions  of  the  viceroy  of  Xew  Spain,  there  is  scattered  through 
his  works  a  vast  amount  of  miscellaneous  information  about  the  system 
by  which  Spain  governed  her  colonies.  But  it  is  not  for  information  on 
matters  of  historical  fact,  chiefly,  that  I  have  been  led  to  consult  Mr. 
Bancroft's  works,  but  rather  for  information  relating  to  the  primary 
sources.  As  a  bibliographical  guide  these  volumes  are  indispensable  to 
any  one  using  the  Bancroft  Collection,  and  as  such  they  have  been  a 
constant  aid  in  the  prosecution  of  this  work.  Many  even  of  the  most 
important  documents  cited  in  his  History  of  Mexico  have  not  been  utilized 
by  him  to  the  uttermost,  in  some  eases  hardly  used  at  all,  and  this  fact 
has  made  it  possible  to  write  an  intensive  study  on  the  viceroy  of  Mexico, 
in  what  is  recognized  as  Mr.  Bancroft's  own  field. 

The  briefest  possible  notice  of  the  secondary  authorities  cannot  be 
concluded  without  a  reference  to  the  recent  invaluable  contribution  to 
the  history  of  Spanish  institutions  in  Europe  and  America  by  6.  Des- 
devises  du  Dezert,  entitled  L'Espaffme  de  L'Ameien  Regime.  These  three 
volumes  touch  only  incidentally  on  American  conditions,  but  contain  the 
clearest  statement  available  of  the  workings  of  the  Spanish  royal  gov- 
ernment. In  the  United  States,  within  very  recent  years,  have  been  pub- 
lished two  separate  one-volume  studies  introductory  to  the  history  of 
Spanish  America — Spaim  t*  America  by  Professor  Bourne,  of  Yale,  and 
The  Establishment  of  Spanish  Jtuk  in  America  by  Professor  Moses,  of 
the  University  of  California,  both  of  which  are  useful  outlines,  the  latter 
particularly  on  the  governmental  side. 

The  list  of  authorities  given  below  contains  only  titles  of  books  and 
documents  consulted,  and  is  not  meant  for  a  complete  bibliography  of 
the  subject.  Those  authorities  that  have  been  consulted  frequently,  and 
are  therefore  of  considerable  importance  to  this  thesis,  have  been  com- 
mented upon  briefly  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  aid  they  furnished. 


288          University  of  California  Publications  in  History     [VOL.  l 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PRIMARY  SOURCES 

BRANCIFORTE,  MARQUES  DE. 

Instruction  a  su  sucesor  Don  Miguel  Jose  de  Azanza.  Printed  in  both 
editions  of  the  Instrucciones  de  los  Vireyes  de  Nueva  Espana. 

Particularly  useful  for  the  military  organization  of  the  vice- 
royalty  and  the  duties  of  the  captain-general. 

FLORIDA  BLANCA,  CONDE  DE. 

Instruccidn  Reservada.  Printed  as  an  appendix  in  William  Coxe, 
Memoirs  of,  the  Kings  of  Spain  of  the  House  of  Bourbon  (second 
edition,  London,  1815). 

Authoritative  for  general  policy  of  Charles  m.  Of  no  direct 
value  for  the  study  of  Spanish  America. 

FONSECA  Y  URRUTIA. 

Historia  General  de  Beal  Hacienda,    6  vols.    Mexico,  1853. 

Written  during  the  rule  of  the  younger  Eevilla  Gigedo, 
although  not  published  until  much  later.  A  mine  of  information 
for  the  economic  history  of  Mexico. 

Instruction  General  que  trajo  de  la  Corte  el  Marques  de  las  Amarittas  ex- 
pedida  por  la  via  del  Consejo.  (Done  at  Aranju&z,  May  16,  1755.) 
Printed  in  Instrucciones  que  los  Vireyes  de  Nueva  Espana.  (Imprenta 
imperial,  1867.) 

This  document  covers  twenty-seven  closely  printed,  large 
octavo  pages  and  is  in  effect  the  viceroy 's  commission.  The  first 
twenty  paragraphs  are  interesting  for  the  light  they  throw  on 
the  relations  of  church  and  state  in  Mexico. 

Instrucciones  que  los  Vireyes  de  Nueva  Espana  Dejaron  &  sus  Sucesores. 

There  are  two  different  works  bearing  this  title.  They  are 
not  of  identical  contents,  although  they  both  print  the  most 
important  viceregal  instructions.  The  first  collection  (Mexico, 
1867),  was  printed  by  the  imprenta  imperial  and  is  therefore 
referred  to  by  that  name.  The  second  collection,  in  two  vol- 
umes, is  a  part  of  the  Biblioteca  Iberica  (Mexico,  1873).  The 
imprenta  imperial  edition  contains  some  valuable  documents, 
other  than  instructions  to  the  viceroys,  but  lacks  that  of  the 
younger  Revilla  Gigedo.  The  citations  to  the  contents  to  both 
these  collections  are  to  the  separate  documents  under  the  name 
of  the  author.  For  instance,  the  instruction  left  by  the  Viceroy 
Marquina  is  always  cited  as  "Marquina,"  and  the  numbers 


Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  AVic  Spain  L  v- 


refer  to  the  articles  into  which  this  mttmmt  al  is  dirided 
of  to  the  pages.  AM  eiyreptiaai  is  the  instruction  of  Maaeera, 
where  the  mfcreacfa  are  to  the  aambers  of  the  pages,  according 
to  the  tmptrata  imperial. 

T  Uu/u.  (Jorge  Jaaa  and  Aatoaio  de  UDoa). 
Notion  gocrciaj  «V  Jav-r»«  (Madrid,  1826). 

The  best  known  of  aH  the  CTitiriiimn  of  the  Spaairh  rale  im 
the  eighteenth  eeatary,  bat  asefal  oaly  ia  am  iadireet  way 
for  eoaditaaaa  ia  New  Spaia. 

Lryo  ie  la*  latfss.    (Madrid,  1841.) 


Scmor  de  loans  a  tu  rmeetor  rf 


not  withoot  ralae  ia  stvdyiag  the  royal  patronage. 

MAXCBKA,  MiBQctis  DK,  D.  A>nox»  Rraiimair  HE  TOUDO. 

/Miramoa  one  de  Ordem  del  Xey  dio  el  Tiny  de  Mijico  a  «a 
Rrteientinmo   Semar  D.  Pedro  JTaao   Cotoa,   Dmqme  de    Vt 
(Written  October  22,  1673). 

This  is  one  of  the  best  known  and  most  quoted  of  the  vice- 
regal instructions,  bat  of  rather  too  carry  a  date  to  be  of  great 
aae  for  this  thesis. 

MAKTIL,  JAOXTO. 

JTotias*  Imftrmftiras  qme  par  mmerte  del  Semar  AtmtnUa*  dio  sm  teere- 
fario  D.  Jmcmto  Mmrft  a  Bserlrmtitimto,  Semar  D.  Frvmeueo 
(Done  at  Mexico,  May  4^  1760). 

Brief  and  rather  animportant.    Some  good 


iHstrmecidm  del  Semar  Marqnmm  at  Semar  Itmrrigany.     (Doae  at  Taca- 
baya,  Jaaaary  1,  1803). 

Despite  the  low  opinion  which  has  beea  geaerallj  held  of 
Marqaina  is  aa  adnuaistrator  aad  as  a  man,  his 
oae  of  the  clearest  aad  BMH*  aatvfaetorr  of  them  aJL 


fttafijm,  Afmmtmmuemtof  y  Antat  que  par  Mmmdfdo  de  8.  M .  di  •!  Sfnor 
D.  Lm*  de  Feissco,  ritorey,  y  Gobfrmador  y  Capita*  General  destm 
Xmew*  Etpmmm.  (Not  dated). 

laterestiag  as  the  instruction  of  the  fast  rieeroy,  bat  valae- 
less,  except  for  comparisons,  for  the  eighteeath  eeatary  period. 


290          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [V<>L- ! 

Novisima  Becopilacidn  de  las  Leyes  de  Indies.    (Madrid,  1805.) 

Generally  speaking,  more  comprehensive,  of  a  later  date,  and 
more  conveniently  arranged  than  the  old  Laws  of  the  Indies. 

Eeal  Ordinanza  para  el  Establecimeinto  v  Instruction  de  los  Intendentes  de 

Ejercito  y  Provincia  en  el  Eeyno  de  Nueva  Espana.     (Madrid,  1786.) 

This  is  the  largest,  and  in  some  ways  the  most  important, 

single  document  consulted.     The  greater  part  of  chapter  vi  is 

based  almost  exclusively  upon  it  and  it  is  absolutely  essential 

to  the  understanding  of  the  reforms  of  Galvez. 

Ordenes  y  Cedulas  Beales. 

This  is  merely  a  binder 's  title  given  to  a  collection  in  twelve 
volumes  of  miscellaneous  royal  documents,  mainly  from  the 
eighteenth  century.  Nearly  all  of  the  several  hundred  docu- 
ments contained  in  this  collection  have  been  consulted,  but  only 
the  following  ones  have  been  sieparated  out  for  individual 
reference: 

Concordato  entre  la  corte  de  Boma  y  la  de  Espana.  Vol.  v,  pp.  32-46. 
(Keprint,  Latin  and  Spanish  in  parallel  columns.  Madrid.  1756.; 

Eeal  Cedula  de  S.  M.,  For  dirigirse  d  establecer  la  buena  harmonia  que 
deben  observer  entre  la  jurisdiccidn  Eeal  Ordinaria  y  Tribunales  del 
Santo  officio  de  la  Inquisicidn.  Vol.  v,  pp.  402-411.  (Madrid,  1783.) 

Seal  Cedula  de  S.  M.  Media- Anata.    Vol.  m,  p.  25.     (Madrid,  1787.) 
Beglamento  de  comer  do  libre  .  .  .  .  de  Octubre  12,  1778.    Vol.  m,  pp. 
104-245.  (  Madrid,  1778.) 

So  much  is  said  about  this  decree  in  chapter  vi  that  no  par- 
ticular characterization  is  needed  here.    Like  the  Ordinance  of 
the  Intendants,  it  belongs  to  a  small  group  of  epoch-making  laws. 
Papeles  Varios. 

This  is  again  a  binder's  title  for  a  great  number  of  volumes 
made  up  of  all  sorts  of  documents,  such  as  royal  decrees,  vice- 
regal proclamations,  sermons,  charters,  and  so  forth.  Only  a 
few  of  these  volumes  have  been  consulted,  so  there  are  only  the 
three  following  citations: 

Sando  de  D.  Jose  Gdlvez.    Vol.  35,  pp.  1-20. 

This  proclamation  or  the  decree  from  the  visitor-general 
himself  is  of  great  value  for  the  study  of  the  municipal  govern- 
ment of  the  City  of  Mexico,  and  the  political  relations  subsist- 
ing between  the  viceroy  and  the  municipality. 

Ordenama  del  Consulado.    Vol.  35.     (Mexico,  1772.) 

This  is  the  constitution  or  charter  of  the  Consulado  of 
Mexico,  drawn  up  in  close  imitation  of  the  one  in  Seville. 

Ordenama  de  la  Divisidn  de  la  Nobilisima  Cindad  de  Mexico  en 
quarteles Issued  by  D.  Martin  de  Mayorga.  (Mexico,  1782.) 


1913] 


Smith :  Tke  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  291 


BEVILLA  GIGEDO,  COXDB  DE 

Imttrvecio*  al  Seior  Morales  de  las  A*anOa*.    (Mexico,  November  28, 

1754.) 

Cited  as  "Bevilla  Gigedo  the  Elder." 

•  This  vieeroy,  who  was  in  office  about  nine  years,  left  an 
account  of  his  rule  which  suggests  some  interesting  points  in 
regard  to  the  royal  patronage  and  the  social  evils  of  his  time. 

RxmxA  GIGKDO,  COXDE  DE. 

Ingtnedon  Setervada  <pe  #6  6  «  ****»  en  A  Mando,  Morgues  d 
Brmdforte  tobre  el  Govitnut  de  este  eontinenU  en  el  tvmpo  q*e  f** 
«.  F«r«y.  (Written  at  Merieo,  June  30,  1794.    Printed  in  Mexico, 
1831  and  1873.) 

Cited  as  "Bevilla  Gigedo." 

The  longest  and  most  illuminating  of  the  instructions,  by  the 
ablest  of  the  viceroys.  An  invaluable,  contemporary  document 
from  the  most  interesting  period  of  the  Spanish  rule.  This 
instruction  touches  every  ride  of  the  governmental  activity  of 
Xew  Spain,  and  has  been  the  unfailing  resource,  in  the  way  of 
primary  material,  for  the  entire  thesis. 

SOXOfcA,  MAWJCfiS  DK  (Jofifi  ft*  GAiVEZ). 

Jnforme  GenenL    (Mexico,  1867.) 

This  volume  constitutes  a  report  from  the  visitor-general  t 
the  home  government  on  the  economic  and  financial  eondit 
of  Mexico.    Taluable  for  an  economic  study  of  the  viceroyalty 
at  that  time,  but  only  very  slightly  used  for  this  thesis. 


YlLLARBOEL,  LlC. 

Smfcnudades  PoKKcas  ____  de  la  Capital  de  «ta  Nneva  Etpaia  ---- 
6  vols,  MS.     (Written  in  Mexico,  1787.) 

The  writings  of  Villarroel  are  valuable  in  giving  an  unofficial 
contemporary  view  of  the  whole  political  and  social  organiza- 
tion of  the  country  during  the  full  tide  of  the  Galvez  reforms. 

SBOOKDAKY  AUTHORITIES 
ADWSOX,  JOSEPH. 

Charles  the  TTtird  of  Spain.    (Oxford,  1900.) 

Ignores  America,  therefore  little  used. 


.  LUCAS. 
Historic  de  Mexico  ....  5  vote.     (Mexico,  1849-51.) 

Deals  mainly  with  the  history  of  Mexico  after  independence. 
Very  pro-Spanish  in  its  attitude. 
BAXCBOFT,  HTTBEKT  HOWB. 

History  of  Mexico.    6  vols.     (San  Francisco,  1883.) 


292          University  of  California  Publications  in  History      [VOL.  l 

History  of  Central  America.    3  vols.  (San  Francisco,  1882.) 

For  the  present,  and  probably  for  a  long  time  to  come,  the 
best  guide  to  the  history  of  Spanish  North  America. 

BOURNE,  E.  G. 

in  America.    American  Nation  Series.     (New  York,  1904.) 


BUSTAMANTE,   C.   M. 

Cuadro  Histdrico  de  la  Revolucidn  de  la  America  Mexicana.     6   vols. 
(Mexico,  1823-25.) 

Like  Alauian,  this  author  dealt  with  the  period  too  late  to  be 
of  much  help  to  the  study  of  the  viceregal  period. 

CHESNEY,  SIB  GEORGE. 

Indian  Polity.    A  view  of  the  System  of  Administration.    Third  edition. 
(London,  1894.) 

Eeferred  to  merely  for  comparisons  between  the  British 
government  of  India  and  the  Spanish  government  of  America. 

DAY,  CLIVE. 

Policy  and  Administration  of  the  Dutch  in  Java.     (New  York,  1904.) 

Eeferred  to  occasionally  for  the  sake  of  analogies  and  con- 
trasts with  English  and  Spanish  colonial  systems. 

DESDEVISES  DTJ  DEZERT,  G. 

L'Espagne  de  L'Ancien  'Regime.    3  vols.     (Paris,  1897.) 

Best  account  of  the  general  administration  of  Spain  and  the 
Indies  for  the  period  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Based  upon  the 
primary  sources;  much  fuller  for  Spain  than  for  the  colonies. 

GREENE,  E.  B. 

The  Provincial  Governor  in  the  English  Colonies  of  North  America.   (New 
York,  1898.) 

Eeferred  to  for  comparisons  between  the  Spanish  and  English 
colonies  in  America. 
HELPS,  SIR  ARTHUR. 

The  Spanish  Conquest  in  America.     4  vols.     (London  and  New  York, 
1900.)     Edited  by  M.  Oppenheim. 

HUMBOLDT,  ALEXANDER  VON. 

Essai  Politique  sur  le  Eoyaume  de  la  Nouvelle-Espagne.     (Paris,  1811.) 
But  little  use  for  this  thesis. 

HURTADO,  J.  PlERNAS. 

La  Casa  de  la  Contratacidn  de  las  Indias.     (Madrid,  1907.) 
LANNOY,  C.  DE,  AND  VANDER  LINDEN,  H. 

Histoire  de  L'Expansion  Coloniale  des  Peuples  Europeens  —  Portugal  et 
Espagne.     (Brussels-Paris,  1907.) 


1913]  Smith:  The  Viceroy  of  New  Spain 

LEA,  H.  C. 

The  Inquisition  in  the  Spanish  Dependencies.    (New  York,  1! 

Best  book  on  the  subject  in  English.     Based  largely  upon 
Medina. 

MEDINA,  Josfi  T. 

Historia  del  Tribunal  del  Santo  O/fcio  de  la  Inquisicton  en  Mexuso.    i 
tiago  de  Chile,  1905.) 

MEXDIETA,  GER6NIMO  DE. 

Historia  Ectesidstica  Indiana.    (Mexico,  1870.) 

MOSES,  BERNARD. 

South  America  on  the  Eve  of  Emancipation.    (New  York,  1! 

Useful  for  comparison  with  South  American  conditions. 
The  Establishment  of  the  Spanish  Bule  in  Mexico.     (New  York,  1898.) 
The  best  book  in  English,  or  in  any  language,  in  one  volume, 
on  the  Spanish  colonial  administration. 

PARKMAN,  FRANCIS. 

The  Old  Regime  in  Canada.    2  vols.     (Boston,  1901.    Frontenae  edi 

Used  slightly  for  comparisons  between  French  and  Spanish 
administration  in  America. 

QUESADA,  V.  G. 

Vireinato  del  Sio  de  la  Plata.  (Buenos  Ayres,  1881.) 

Valuable  for  the  account  of  the  intendant  system  in  South 
America. 

RlBADENEYRA,  A.  «T.  DE. 

Manual  Compendia  de  la  Begio  Patronato  Indiano.     (Madrid,  1799.) 

The  best  secondary  account  of  the  royal  patronage  in  Mexico. 

RIVERA,  AGUST±K. 

Principios  Criticos  sobre  el  Vireinato  de  la  Nueva  Espana.    3  vols.     (Sa 
Juan  de  los  Lagos,  1884.) 

Valuable  criticisms  on  the  historigraphy  of  Mexico. 

SCELLE,  GEORGES. 

La  Traite  Negriere  aux  Indes  de  CastiOe.    2  vols.     (Pans,  1! 

SOL6RZAXO,  JUAN  DK. 

Politico  Indiana.    2  vols.     (Madrid,  1776.) 

A  convenient  digest  of  the  Laws  of  the  Indies,  thrown  into 
narrative  form. 

ZIMMERMAN.  ALFRED. 

Die  Kolonialpolitilc  Portugal  und  Spaniens.     (VoL  I  of  Dit 
ischen  Kolonien,  in  4  vols.)     (Berlin,  1896.) 

This  work  is  somewhat  dissapointing,  for  in  spite  of  the  scale 
upon  which  it  has  been  undertaken,  it  contains  practically 
nothing  new,  either  in  matters  of  fact  or  of  interpretation. 


